Voyager: A first attempt
by Tiger Girl1
Summary: UPDATED, FINALLY! 17 year old Emily is stuck aboard the USS Voyager probably forever. How will she learn to live in a universe she thought was imaginary? Will she be able to come to terms with her own fears and become a true member of the crew?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all the characters but Emily. I respect them, so I'm trying to be as true to them as possible. I just wanted to see what would happen if a youngster much like myself as a college freshman stumbled into their world.

            The last scene of _Star Trek: Voyager faded from the screen. Emily grabbed the remote control and quickly turned the TV off before that particularly offensive ad proclaiming how easy it was to increase one's bust size that always seemed to come on directly after her favorite show could take over from her vision of the ship in space. Then she sighed and stretched, reluctantly returning to the real world and the journal entry she had been writing during advertisements._

"So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm homesick. I've pretty much been a basket case since I left home. And I'll tell myself I'm not going to cry, and to a certain point it works, but then when I'm alone in the evenings and it's dark outside and there's no one around who cares if I had a really bad day – or maybe something cool happened, or I learned something new but there's no one to share it with – and I just can't hold back tears. I guess I'm not very brave. I miss my sister especially. I wish I could make friends more easily. It's just – I don't fit in with this whole college "youth culture" thing. Drinking and partying frankly bores me to tears. I don't watch much TV. What my peers call music, I call noise, and what I call music is excruciatingly dull to them. After all, even my fellow music majors don't seem to listen to what they're being trained to play! I'm not disliked at all, so I try not to feel sorry for myself. I just feel like I'm invisible to them because we have no common ground.

"I just finished watching _Star Trek: Voyager. Discovering the reruns on TV at ten every night has helped a lot. Which in itself speaks of my massive sense of dislocation. I almost feel like I'd be more at home on that imaginary starship than I am here at the University of Illinois! Pathetic isn't it? I do hope I'm not turning into a "Trekkie"! My family would never let me live that down! My parents, pacifist anarchists that they are, think the show is silly, and of course Trixie is studying dance so that she can create the great art she sees in her head, and she doesn't even know what _Star Trek_ is and would be contemptuous if she did!_

"It's just – I wish I could believe that we will turn into people like that. It would be nice to know it was at least possible for human beings to grow into such a kind, compassionate, honorable, courageous race. I wish – "

            Suddenly the room was full of blindingly bright light. Emily reflexively leaped to her feet, clutching her journal to her chest. The light grew brighter and brighter until even with her eyes shut all she experienced was brilliant, blinding, white light.


	2. Voyager

Author's Note: R/R as always!

Disclaimer: Star Trek isn't mine!

Voyager

"Stay where you are and drop what you're holding. And if you're a Q, get the hell out of here."

Emily's eyes flew open at the words spoken in an unfamiliar male voice. That didn't help, however, since all she could see was white light.

"Put whatever you're holding on the floor and step away from it." The voice sounded harsher this time.

"What?" Emily turned blindly toward the source of the sound. "What am I – ? I'm sorry, I can't see anything. If this is a joke, I swear I'm going to kill whoever – "

"We have phasers trained on you and are prepared to fire. Please drop your weapon."

"My _what_? Please, you're making a mistake – This is just my journal!" Emily set it quickly down at her feet. "Oh, and a pen," she added, realizing that she had been holding it pointed outward at chest level in the hand that covered her journal. She dropped it and raised her empty hands, blinking rapidly in an effort to clear her vision of the red, orange and blue sparks now searing across her eyeballs inside her head. "That's all, really," she said. "Please, whoever you are, I still can't see. And if you're one of my roommates and this is a joke, I am still going to kill you."

"This is not a joke," another male voice said, sounding puzzled. There was a soft chirp, and then the voice continued, "Security to Captain Janeway. Intruder alert, deck 9."

"On my way," responded the crisp, cool voice of Captain Janeway, slightly muffled through what Emily now realized must have been an activated com badge.

_I'm either dreaming, or something totally unrealistic is happening, _Emily told herself, closing her eyes and covering them with her hands in another effort to restore her now functioning but very foggy eyesight. E_ither way, I _have _to be able to see, because dream or not I'm going to meet Captain Janeway in person!_

She opened her eyes to find that she could clearly see the three security officers surrounding her, though the color seemed washed out. The two men and one woman in Starfleet uniforms had holstered their phasers and stood watching her with wary uncertainty. Emily tried to smile at them, but wasn't sure if she'd quite managed it, and the stab of pain that shot through her eyes when she moved her head discouraged her from making a second attempt. O_h, my head!_

The quiet swish that always accompanied an opening or closing door on _Star Trek ships caused her guards' eyes to shift with some measure of relief from their intruder to their Captain. Despite the pain, Emily turned her head too. She was determined to at least get a good look at Captain Janeway before she woke up. __Funny, though, I don't remember ever experiencing physical pain in a dream before._

The Captain approached them with her usual direct, yet graceful, stride, and stopped about five feet from the young college student. Her keen gaze swept over the girl swiftly, missing nothing. Emily winced. She would have to magically appear in front of the Captain in her ugly flannel pajamas!

Janeway's eyes widened. "You're human."

"Yes, Captain."

"How did you get aboard my ship?"

"I – I don't know. I guess I must be dreaming. I thought – I mean, Voyager doesn't exist!"

The Captain managed to look compassionate, mocking and skeptical all at once. "I assure you, Voyager is quite real."

Emily shook her head, then winced and shut her eyes as a red comet flashed across her vision and slammed into her brain.

"Is there something wrong with your eyes?" Janeway's voice was concerned. Emily dared not open her eyes to see if her face showed the same emotion.

"There was a bright flash of light at this location, Captain," the female security officer said. "That's what brought us here. Our tricorders showed the same sort of readings we pick up when a Q is – uh – messing with time, space and matter. Only in a much more concentrated form."

"Are you a Q?" the Captain asked.

Emily opened her eyes, but closed them again in a hurry when she saw two Kathryn Janeways standing in front of her. "No, I'm not," she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "Please, Captain, I don't know what's going on. I was in my dorm room writing in my journal and then …" She let her voice trail off when she could no longer control its shaking. _Great, she thought, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut to hold back tears, _now I'm going to have hysterics in front of Captain Janeway. In my pajamas.__

Janeway gripped Emily's shoulder with a steadying hand as the girl swayed on her feet. "I'm sorry," the Captain murmured, "you're injured and I'm standing here interrogating you." She tapped her com badge. "Janeway to sickbay. Doctor, two to beam directly there."


	3. Sickbay

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all the characters but Emily! I'm just borrowing, so don't sue me!

Sickbay

"Well, the good news is you'll be fine. You're lucky though. If that light had been any brighter your eyesight would have been severely damaged, requiring major surgery. Of course, with a surgeon of my skill on board your sight would not have been in any permanent danger, but the surgery itself is a rather discomfiting procedure, and recovery from the operation would have been slow and somewhat painful – "

"Doctor," the Captain raised her hand wearily. "I think she gets the idea."

The EMH's acetic face showed a momentary frown of disapproval as he put down his medical tricorder and took a hypospray from Kes. He paused in his administration of it when Emily involuntarily flinched away, and let out a sigh of exasperation. 

Kes smiled encouragingly. "It won't hurt," she said gently. "It's for your headache."

"I'm sorry. It was a reflex. Please …"

The Doctor swiftly brought the hypospray to her neck and injected the medicine. "This will clear up your eyesight as well, Miss – ?"

"Emily. Emily Anderson."

"Miss Anderson," the Doctor hardly missed a beat. "After a good night's sleep you'll be fit as a fiddle."

Emily thought that her second attempt at a smile aboard Voyager was quite a bit more credible than her first. "Thank you," she said, sitting up. "The headache is already going away."

The Doctor's lips twitched into an expression halfway between a grimace and a smirk. He nodded his head shortly, then picked up his tricorder and left the room. followed by the small, ethereal-looking Occampan.

Emily looked at the Captain, who had seated herself on the biobed opposite her. "I ought to thank you, too," she said. "You've been very kind, considering that you know nothing about me."

Janeway's mouth quirked up in one corner. "It hardly takes unusual kindness to see that someone in pain receives treatment," she said. "But I must confess to a great deal of curiosity about how you came here."

Emily nodded, suddenly feeling utterly drained. "I understand that," she said, her voice fogged with weariness. "I wish I could tell you. It was the year 2002 where I was, and I'd just finished watching you on TV, and then there was this flash of light – but maybe I'm just asleep …"

"What? Wait a minute, slow down. Watching who, where?"

Emily tried with indifferent success to collect her thoughts. "Watching you – this ship. It's a television show called Star Trek: Voyager."

"Television? The ancient earth entertainment device, right?"

"Yeah. Like the one Tom – " Emily stopped abruptly.

"Go on. The one Tom what?"

"I don't know if you really want me to answer that," Emily said. "It might go against your Temporal Prime Directive. I don't know where you are in time – and the stardate wouldn't mean anything to me." She giggled. "And I can't very well ask you if this is season one or – well wait, your hair…" The Captain's hair was long, and pulled softly into a bun in the middle of the back of her head.

"Miss Anderson, you're not making sense." Janeway's voice was more than a little exasperated. "And you seem to know quite a lot about us for someone from the beginning of the 21st century."

"I know. I watch you on TV every night. I'm sorry, Captain. I could do better at this if I weren't so tired. None of this makes sense. TV shows don't just come alive."

Janeway favored the young woman with another perplexed stare.

"Captain," Kes's gentle voice interrupted, as the Occampan quietly entered the room, "I think the Doctor intended that she sleep now. Maybe you could continue this tomorrow morning?"

"That would be best," the Captain agreed after a moment, standing swiftly. "I could use some sleep myself. I've been running on caffeine since 2300 hours. Kes, would you show Miss Anderson to quarters?"

"Of course."

Emily stood to follow the tiny, ethereal-looking woman, then looked back. "Captain."

"Yes?" Janeway turned from the doorway she had been about to leave through.

"My journal. I laid it on the floor when your security team surrounded me. If you like, please read it. I don't think it will answer all your questions, but it should explain a great deal."

The Captain nodded. "That is a very generous offer, Miss Anderson. Sleep well."

"Thank you, Captain."


	4. The Mess Hall

Voyager: Part 4

Emily awoke to a bell-like tone that she groggily recognized as a request to enter. She opened her eyes and saw the same surroundings she had upon going to sleep: the chrome and blue walls and floor of an undecorated room aboard the starship Voyager. :Quarters,: she thought sleepily. Then, puzzled, :But I can't still be dreaming?: Just for good measure, she pinched herself as hard as she could. "Ouch!"

The tone sounded again. Now fully awake, though no less confused, Emily literally jumped out of bed. "Come in," she said, futilely running her fingers through her tangled hair. The door opened to allow Kes to step lightly into the room.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" the Occampan woman asked.

"No – I – uh – Yes, I suppose so. But I expected to wake up in my dorm room at the University of Illinois," Emily finally managed.

Kes smiled sympathetically. "You really don't know how you got here, then?" she asked.

"I have no idea at all."

Kes held out her hand. "I don't think I was introduced to you last night. I'm Kes."

"I know – " Emily stopped herself. _I'd better talk to the Captain some more before I go around letting crewmembers know that I know all about them, _she decided. "I know you know I'm Emily," she rephrased quickly, shaking the Occampan's hand.

"Yes," Kes smiled. "I thought you might like to know how some of the technology here works. I checked, and if you're from the early 21st century on earth, you wouldn't know how to use replecators or sonic showers, would you?"

Emily grinned back. The woman's smile was contagious. "No, you're right I don't. And I would love a shower! Do you – " she hesitated, then asked, "Do you suppose I could get some clothes? These are my pajamas, and I would feel very awkward wearing them around the ship."

Kes's smile widened. "Of course."

After a crash course in replecator use, and much laughter at the clothing Kes produced before she found the file on 20th century "historical garments," Emily was provided with a long-sleeved, blue turtle-neck shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

"What about shoes?" Kes asked, looking dubiously at Emily's bare feet. "You'd probably be comfortable in the same kind of shoes the other humans wear. What size are you?"

Emily shrugged. "Size 9, but I'm sure that's not how you measure shoe size anymore."

Kes nodded in agreement. "It's not a measurement I've heard used."

"Oh, well, more trial and error."

Soon Emily was clean and dressed, with her hair brushed and pulled neatly back. "Now what?" she asked Kes.

"Would you like something to eat?" the tiny woman asked. "I could show you how to replicate food here, or I could take you to the mess hall."

_The mess hall – Oh, I would love to meet Neelix and see if his cooking is really as bad as they always say it is,_ Emily thought with an inner grin. "The mess hall, if that's all right," she said aloud.

Kes looked pleased. "Follow me." 

The mess hall was almost empty. The few crewmembers there were mostly alone, nursing mugs of coffee or tea and almost uniformly studying data padds. Emily looked at Kes. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Almost 10:00 hours," Kes replied.

Emily nodded, then smiled as a short, colorfully dressed man with facial features that could only be Talaxian approached them, grinning.

"Hello, hello! Welcome to the mess hall! You must be the guest Kes has told me about. I'm Neelix. What can I get you this lovely morning?"

Emily laughed and shook her head. "I'm Emily Anderson – Emily to both of you, please – and I honestly don't know what I want. I am starving, though." She turned to Kes. "What's good?"

"Everything," Kes said loyally.

Several minutes later, the two women walked over to a table near the windows. Emily was still laughing and looking down at her plate, which held a little bit of "everything". She couldn't even begin to remember what Neelix had said it all was.

"Am I going to wish you hadn't said that?" she asked Kes as they set their plates on the table and sat down."

Kes laughed as well. "Maybe. But don't eat what you don't like. Neelix won't be offended."

"I get the impression that it would take a lot to offend Neelix," Emily smiled. 

"That's true – " Kes began, then realized that the young human was not listening anymore. Emily had thoughtlessly turned her head, and was now staring out the window at her first real-life view of space. Stars flashed past like city lights on a freeway.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Kes said gently.

Emily slowly let out the breath she had not realized she was holding. "Are – are we at warp?"

"Yes."

"I hadn't realized … how … lonely it would feel. This little ship hurtling through space …" she shook her head. "The ship feels so big and so stable, until you look out there …"

The sound of someone clearing his throat caused both women to turn away from the stars to face a young man standing by their table. Emily smiled. "I know you. You're the security officer who said, 'If you're a Q get the hell out of here.' Somehow I don't think that sentence is standard protocol!"

The young man laughed. "No, it isn't. We had two Qs on board a couple months ago who played a game of tag with the ship, and I wasn't looking forward to going through something like that again."

_Two Q's,_ Emily thought. _Death Wish?_

The security officer held out his hand. "I'm Ensign John Robertson."

 "Emily Anderson." Emily said, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you."

Kes shook her head. "I don't understand. You take aliens like me and Neelix, and even an omnipotent being like Q, completely for granted, but you're awed and afraid when you look out at the stars."

Emily thought for a moment. "Did you hear me babbling to the Captain in sickbay?"

"A bit."

"I was telling the truth. I am from the 21st century, but in my timeline there's a TV show called Star Trek: Voyager that shows all of you – this ship – exactly as it appears to me now in real life. I thought I was dreaming when I got here. Now – well, either I'm awake or I'm in a coma because if this is a dream, it is the longest dream I've ever had!"

"That's really crazy," Ensign Robertson said. "So you really are human, just from a different time?"

"I guess so."

"Well, if you're staying onboard I'll probably see you again."

"I hope so. Nice meeting you."

"Oh, and Miss Anderson?"

"Yeah?"

The man pointed to a greenish paste on her plate. "Don't eat that. Don't even take a small bite. It's so hot you won't be able to taste anything for months if you do."

All three of them laughed. 


	5. Tricorder Readings

Disclaimer: I'm borrowing most of these characters from Paramount.

Author's Note: Whew! A longer chapter! Thank you to those who are reading and reviewing! Keep doing that!

This is Real

"'…The Captain of a third vessel offers Captain Janeway an alliance in which they would jointly raid ships and divide the spoils. Janeway refuses. The crew of Voyager nearly escapes, but is thrown back into the void and looses nearly all their power supply. Still Captain Janeway will not attack or steal from other ships to stay alive, and in the midst of bleaker and bleaker circumstances, she tries to form an alliance with other ships based on cooperation and sharing of resources.'" Kathryn Janeway, sitting casually on the front edge of her desk, paused in her reading and glanced up at her First Officer, who had opened his mouth as if to speak. When he remained silent, she continued reading aloud.

"'Of course she does succeed, and eventually the entire alliance escapes because after all, this is Star Trek, and there must be a happy ending. But I must admit that I admire, even in a story, that kind of unflinching moral courage in the face of almost certain death. Well I know that if that situation had been a real one, honorable Captain Kathryn Janeway and her brave, loyal crew would have died ignominiously in the void, and their ship would have been stripped to provision those of their desperate fellow captives – "

This time as Kathryn paused for breath, Chakotay did speak. "Sort of a cynical viewpoint, don't you think?"

Kathryn raised a single, very expressive eyebrow. "She goes on. Listen: 'And I kept thinking that if I were in that kind of a hopeless, desperate situation, alone in the far reaches of space with no one to answer to for my actions, I hope that I would make the same decision as Kathryn Janeway.'"

Chakotay smiled a little as his Captain closed the young woman's journal and looked up at him. "I take it back. Practical. Idealistic. Young. Very bright. Starfleet material, I'd say."

Kathryn chuckled. "With one tiny little problem. She's from the 21st century, and somehow, to her, Starfleet is an entertaining story on television." She sobered. "It appears that we are dealing with some sort of temporal anomaly no one has ever encountered before. And I'm concerned that if she begins telling crewmembers what she thinks is going to happen to this ship, based on what she's seen on her television show, it will at the very least cause a lot of confusion and apprehension. It could even corrupt our timeline."

Before Chakotay could reply, someone activated the bell-tone requesting entrance to the ready room. Kathryn stood, walked around her desk, and sat formally in her chair. "Come in."

The doors swished open to admit the half-Klingon Chief Engineer. "I think I have answers to some of our questions about our guest, Captain," B'Elanna, ever blunt and direct, said by way of greeting. Kathryn gestured for her to continue. "Harry and I have been running every kind of analysis we could think of on the readings our security team picked up, and the only conclusion we can come to is – this may sound far-fetched, but I don't believe Miss Anderson is from this universe."

"She's from another dimension?" Kathryn breathed. "How is that possible?"

B'Elanna thumbed a padd and passed it to Captain Janeway. Chakotay paced behind the desk to look at it over the Captain's shoulder. "As far as we can tell, the readings are remarkably similar to those Q generates in his manipulation of space, time and matter. But there is no indication of an intelligence at work."

Janeway frowned. "Some kind of natural phenomenon?"

"I couldn't say, Captain," B'Elanna shrugged. "As you can see, Ensign Robertson arrived at the location before the light had completely dimmed, and the readings his tricorder picked up are revealing."

Chakotay's raised eyebrows indicated his surprise as he lifted his eyes from the padd to meet the engineer's. "It's like the time we had two Voyagers occupying the same unit of space," he said.

The Captain nodded. "Except the readings here aren't anything like Voyager."

B'Elanna walked around the desk to reach over Kathryn's other shoulder and press a key on the padd. The padd displayed an image of a neat but rather drab dorm room. There were two beds, one on each side of the small room. Though both beds were made, one was slightly rumpled, as if it had been sat on recently, and had books and several pages of sheet music strewn about on it. At its foot was a small TV set, and on the wall above it hung an exquisite oil painting of an enormous and oddly shaped red flower.

Kathryn glanced up at her two officers. "She said she was in her dorm room writing in her journal, when …"

"Captain," Chakotay said, "don't you think we ought to let Miss Anderson see this? She's got to be at least as curious about what's going on as we are."

"She's got to be frantic, you mean," B'Elanna said. "I would be. Imagine being suddenly thrown into a world you thought was imaginary."

Kathryn winced a bit in sympathy for the sensitive young girl whose journal she had just finished reading. "Agreed." She tapped her com badge. "Janeway to Kes."

"Kes here," the Occampan's voice came through the device.

"Is Miss Anderson still with you?"

"Yes, Captain. We're transplanting spith basil seedlings."

"I would like to see Miss Anderson in my ready room."

"We're on our way."

*     *    *    *

Kes and Emily stood, dusting their hands off on their pants in an identical gesture that made them both laugh when they glanced at each other. Emily had been feeling almost relaxed. It was pleasant to find out that she wasn't completely useless on a 24th century starship, and doing something as ordinary as gardening had helped her to feel more balanced than she had in quite a while. But now her heart beat uncomfortably fast as they walked to the turbolift that would take them to the bridge. Had the Captain read her journal as she had so rashly asked her to do the night before? What a way to introduce herself to a stranger – sharing her deepest thoughts, some of which she had never even talked about with her family! Far too soon for Emily's taste, they were at the door to the ready room, and Kes was activating the bell-tone to request entrance

"Come in," the Captain's crisp voice said. The door swished open and Emily walked into the room. Kes flashed her a quick smile and turned back in the direction of the turbolift. 

As the door closed behind her, Emily focused on the people in the room. Captain Janeway was sitting forward in her chair, her arms resting on her desk, hands clasped together over Emily's journal and her piercing gaze fixed on Emily's face. Chakotay and B'Elanna stood behind the Captain. Emily self-consciously clasped her hands behind her. "Captain," she said hesitantly. Then, glancing at Chakotay and B'Elanna, "Commander; Lieutenant."

"Obviously I don't need to introduce my First Officer and my Chief Engineer," the Captain said with a trace of humor.

Wordlessly, Emily shook her head.

"Miss Anderson, we – " Chakotay began.

"Emily, please," Emily shocked herself by interrupting him. "Please call me Emily. I've never been called Miss Anderson in my life!"

Kindness and understanding showed in the big man's eyes. "Emily, then," he said. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

Janeway just nodded, but B'Elanna looked startled. "You look older," she said quickly.

Emily's smile was faint and ghostlike. "Everyone says that," she told the engineer. "Especially since I'm in college this year. I skipped a year of high school."

"You don't look eighteen, either," B'Elanna opined. "I would have guessed twenty-two or twenty-three."

The Captain raised her hand. "B'Elanna, if we could get back to the matter at hand?" she said firmly. "You are welcome to get to know our guest once we're done here."

"Right." B'Elanna subsided.

"Emily," Chakotay began yet again, "B'Elanna thinks she has some idea how you got here."

The engineer explained as much of her theory as Emily could understand. Then Captain Janeway handed the girl the padd. "This is an image extrapolated from Ensign Robertson's tricorder readings," she told her.

Emily's eyes stung with sudden and inexplicable tears as she saw a completely accurate picture of her ugly little dorm room in Illinois. Even Trixie's painting was hanging on the wall, completely out of place in its institutional surroundings. Trixie … It might be the last time she ever saw anything created by her beautiful, talented sister … She looked up at the three officers, hoping her face said for her the words she could not force from her constricted throat. She finally believed it. This was real.


	6. Making the Bed

Disclaimer: I don't own most of these characters, Paramount does.  
  


Author's Note: This is the last of the introductory material, I promise! Next chapter the action commences! But the following is a very important conversation about what Emily's role on the ship will be. PLEASE REVIEW! I'm going to be on vacation without a computer so don't expect updates for a couple weeks. Try out my crossover fic, "Wilderness" in the meantime!  
  
Making the Bed  
  


Emily stared into the mirror, half surprised to see the person she'd always seen there staring solemnly back at her. Wide green eyes, a pixie- shaped face with high cheekbones and thin lips that naturally turned up at the corners; neutral brown hair pulled back into a simple braid. She wore the navy blue turtle-neck and jeans that had become a sort of uniform for her in the three days she had been aboard Voyager. A Starfleet com badge glinted against her dark shirt just below her left collarbone.  
  


She sighed, trying to shrug some of the tension from her shoulders, and left the bathroom. _I wish I had my clarinet,_ she thought wistfully as she crossed her still-undecorated quarters and began making her bed. _I wonder if Kes needs any help in herponics today? That seems to be one of the only things I'm good for here._  
  


The bell-tone sounded, rousing her from what had promised to be a downward spiral into useless self-pity. "Come in," she said.  
  


The door opened to admit the Captain. Emily self-consciously dropped the blankets she was holding, wishing she'd had time to finish making the bed. Janeway half-smiled. "As you were. Let me help you with those," she said, casually stepping to the other side of the bed and grabbing a corner of the blanket.  
  


"C-Captain, you don't have to..." " Emily stuttered.  
  


"Of course I don't have to," Janeway flashed the girl one of her rare full smiles. "But I happen to know from experience that making a bed goes much faster when two people do it. Come on..." " she gestured to the corner of the blanket on Emily's side.  
  


Emily hesitantly picked up her side of the blanket, and together they made swift work of the bed. "Now," the Captain said, "I came here to return this," she walked back towards the door and picked up Emily's journal, which she had set on the replicator when she entered the room. She handed the girl her journal. "It takes a very specific kind of bravery to allow yourself to become vulnerable to another person," Janeway continued. "This journal was obviously written under the assumption that no one else would ever read it, and I respect the courage it must have taken for you to give it to me."  
  


Emily shook her head and smiled slightly, regaining some of her poise. "Maybe it didn't take as much courage as you suppose, Captain," she said quietly. "It's often a mistake to judge others by yourself. Didn't they teach you that at Starfleet Academy?"  
  


Janeway looked taken aback, then allowed herself a small chuckle when she caught the mischievous glimmer in Emily's eyes. "I'm sorry," Emily continued, the mischief now much more apparent. "Is it a breach of protocol to tease the Captain?"  
  


Janeway laughed. "Certainly not. It's good for her. Now, can we sit? We need to discuss this odd temporal anomaly we seem to be in."  
  


Emily sobered immediately and gestured to the one chair in her sparsely furnished quarters. She herself sat on the newly made bed.  
Janeway sighed. "I must begin by saying that we have no way of getting you home," she said regretfully. "Not even a theory that might work. Although this spatial /temporal/dimensional phenomenon has given us just the vaguest hint of the type of energy the Q Continuum..." you know what they are?"  
Emily nodded.  
  


"It has given us just the barest idea what they use to control space, time and matter. We have no real idea how they do it, or how we might harness something like the power this phenomenon had."  
  


"So in other words, this might open up a new field of scientific study, but meanwhile I'm stuck on this ship."  
  


"For the foreseeable future, yes. Now, I must admit, your apparent foreknowledge in this situation concerns me greatly."  
  


"I've been thinking about that, Captain," Emily said slowly, "May I tell you my observations?"  
  


"By all means."  
  


"Well, first of all, this was a TV show. So even if this weird spatial/temporal/dimensional thing is somehow..." I don't know..." transmitting knowledge of this dimension into the minds of people in my dimension in the form of artistic ideas?"  
  


Janeway started at that, then looked thoughtful.  
  


"Anyway, even if that's what's happening, we've got to account for artistic license being taken with the original material. For instance, Star Trek always has to have a happy ending. But that doesn't mean... And the way each episode gets tied up so neatly. I've got to assume that it isn't quite so simple in real life."  
  


"Nothing about this life is ever simple, Miss Anderson," Janeway said wryly. "So what you're saying is that while you may have a general idea of what might happen to us, it wouldn't be wise to trust your information completely."  
  


"I think that would be very unwise," Emily agreed.  
  


The Captain remained quiet for a moment, then straightened, and when she spoke it was in her command voice. "All right. Miss Anderson, you will be treated as a permanent member of this crew until further notice. You'll have free access to any part of this ship except those restricted for security reasons. You may tell anyone you wish who you are and how you know about us, but you are not under any circumstances to tell anyone on this ship what might happen in the future. Understood?" Emily recognized the look the Captain gave her. There was some kind of a hint hidden in the seemingly straightforward orders.  
  


"Yes, Captain," she said, thinking furiously through the exact wording of her orders. _Got it! I'm not to tell anyone anything, but she's left me a loophole, because she did not say I can't act on the information myself. Clever, Captain._  
  


She looked straight into the Captain's eyes. "I'm not to tell anyone anything about the future no matter what," she said, emphasizing the word 'tell.'  
The corner of Janeway's mouth quirked upward in the familiar not- quite-smile. "Good. Now, I want you to give some thought, in the next few days, to what you would like to do aboard this ship."  
  


Emily nodded and said quickly, "Captain, I'd like to learn! I'd like to start at the very beginning..." at kindergarten level if I have to..." and learn how this ship works. I may be here for the rest of my life, and who knows how much of that life will be aboard this ship. I'd like to learn enough to perform some basic function necessary to the running of the ship, so that I'm not just a drain on your resources. Is that..." possible?"  
  


The Captain's smile was broader this time. "That's more than possible," she said, and Emily thought she detected approval in Janeway's eyes. "And if that's what you want to do, I suggest you talk first to Kes. She has spent a lot of time learning from our computer database, and she'd probably be the best one to show you how to do that. There might even be some curriculums somewhere in there that you'll find useful."  
  


Emily nodded eagerly.  
  


"The other person I'd recommend talking to is Tom Paris, our resident expert on holodeck programs. There may be programs already created that will help you, and if you need something specific, Tom can help you create it."  
  


"Thank you, Captain!"  
  


"You're welcome." The Captain stood. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"  
  


Emily jumped to her feet. "Of course. Thank you so much!"  
  


Janeway nodded, and left the room.  
  


Emily sank back down onto the bed, the animation lighting her body draining away. _I hope I can do this,_ she thought somewhat desperately. _I hope there's a place for me here, because I'm never going home. Never_…  
  


She suddenly pressed her hands to her eyes and gritted her teeth. "I'm not going to cry," she whispered fiercely. "I'm not. I'm not!"


	7. Basics Part I

Disclaimer: If I owned the Voyager characters this would be on TV and I would be rich. Since this is on fanfiction.net and I am a poor musician… You get the idea!  
Author's Note: Please review, especially if you reviewed only once like way back at chapter 2 or something but are still reading this!  
  


  
Basics Part I  
  


The young, blue-clad girl sitting on the chrome-colored floor at the foot of her bed tossed aside the padd she had been studying and rubbed her eyes tiredly.  
_This is so annoying_, she thought, flipping through the spiral notebook in which she had written everything Kes and Tom had told her about computers, holoprograms and padds. _I spend more time looking up how to GET the information than I do actually learning anything!_  
  


When he had noticed her writing everything he said down manually, Lt. Paris had offered to put the information on a padd for her. Emily had rightly told him that if he did that, she'd spend all the time she meant to spend figuring out the holodeck figuring out how to get the information she needed out of the padd. She smiled sourly, remembering how hard he'd laughed at that. It didn't seem very funny now!  
  


Finally finding the information she needed in her notes, Emily went back to the padd with determination. She would, by God, figure this out on her own! She hated bothering busy crewmembers, especially with stupid things like how to read a padd used to teach kindergarteners!  
  


Several long hours later, Emily threw the padd down yet again—this time with a sigh of relief. She'd read the entire dissonant thing, and once she'd accessed the information properly, she'd even realized that she knew everything it had to teach! _On to first grade,_ she thought with no small amount of humor.  
  


Her stomach growled, reminding her that she had missed lunchtime yet again. _I'd better eat before I do my workout_, she decided, stretching her cramped muscles. Standing up slowly, she waited for the tingling sensation of blood flowing back into her feet to subside before moving to the replicator and requesting a sandwich and glass of milk. She shook her head at how few replicator rations she had left, and resolved to go to the mess hall for dinner, regardless of what Neelix was serving.  
  


She ate slowly, partly to avoid indigestion and partly to delay the ordeal ahead of her. Mindful of how long she had been sitting, still and tense, in one position, she did some gentle stretches before leaving her quarters and heading to the holodeck. She passed several crewmembers in the halls, receiving curious or puzzled nods in return for her friendly one. Most of the crew was not yet used to her presence on the ship, even after the two weeks she had been onboard.

"Computer," she said, as she stepped through the arch onto the holodeck, "activate program Starfleet Self-Defense Training Level One."  
  


"Hello, Cadet," the hologram in the Starfleet uniform who appeared said stiffly. "This is a Starfleet Academy program intended as a tutorial in basic self-defense techniques for those who need extra practice or review. It should never be used as a substitute for regular attendance at your scheduled Academy classes. Now that we've gotten that out of the way," he added, loosening up and looking directly at her, "shall we begin?"  
  


Emily giggled. "I wonder if T—uh—Lieutenant Paris could take that silly introduction out of your program," she said as she followed the hologram into the center of the room. "In our circumstances, it's really a waste of time."  
  


The hologram shrugged. "I doubt he could. Official Starfleet Academy programs are very difficult to tamper with."  
  


"I can certainly see the logic to that," Emily conceded. "Yes, I know," she added as his eyes narrowed. "I'm stalling. I guess we'd better get on with it."  
  


"You were the one who activated me and demanded that I teach you," the hologram reminded her. "Regardless of the fact that you are not and never will be Starfleet. Regardless of the fact that you've never in your life done anything more rigorous than stretches for your delicate little clarinet fingers. You were the one who decided you needed physical training so you wouldn't be a liability in the case of an emergency. If you don't want to continue…"  
  


"Were you programmed with the Doctor's personality subroutines?" Emily snapped, cutting through her teacher's tirade. "In case your hearing is malfunctioning, I said let's get on with it!"  
  


The holographic self-defense coach drew himself up—and smiled. "If you are going to serve aboard a Starfleet vessel," he said in a deceptively pleasant voice, "there is one small lesson you should learn immediately. Do not, under any circumstances, use that tone of voice with a person of higher rank than yourself. And since everyone aboard this ship with any training at all—including me—outranks you, I suggest you adopt a more humble attitude. Take ten laps around the gym to work off that bad attitude."  
  


"Ten laps!" Emily burst out incredulously. "How do you expect me to get through the rest of my lesson if I'm out of breath and—"  
  


"Fifteen laps," the coach amended. "And if you don't want me to make it twenty, you'd better move. Now."  
  


Emily let out a loud and rebellious sigh, and moved.  
  


For a music student who had never even played sports in school, those fifteen laps around the huge room were grueling. So was the hour of strength and flexibility building exercises that followed them, and when the hologram began the last half-hour of instruction in what Emily had dubbed "Official Starfleet Karate," she nearly collapsed. When the program ended she was drained and gasping for breath. She left the holodeck and headed straight for her quarters, reflecting on how much she hated these thrice-weekly lessons she had imposed on herself, and wondering how the Starfleet cadets ever endured real training. This time she didn't even see the people who passed her in the halls.  
  


She shed her sweaty clothes as soon as she entered her room, and went straight to the bathroom. "Computer, activate sonic shower."  
  


"Unable to comply."  
  


"What! Why not?" the girl demanded crossly.  
  


"Sonic showers are offline."  
  


"Damn! Don't you realize that the thought of a shower was all that kept me going that last half hour?"  
  


"Please restate request," the computer's emotionless voice replied.  
  


"I wasn't talking to you," Emily muttered, leaving the bathroom. "The showers WOULD have to malfunction now of all times." She paused by the replicator. "I don't suppose it would be possible for you to give me a large bowl of water and some soap," she said to it.  
  


"Specify temperature of water," the computer responded.  
  


"How the hell would I know?" she demanded. "No don't answer that," she added quickly.  
  


As Emily stood there rubbing her nose and trying to remember how to convert degrees Fahrenheit into degrees Celsius, the ship shook just a tiny bit. _I wonder if we're in an asteroid field or something,_ she thought absently.  
  


"Three degrees Celsius," she told the computer.  
  


To her great relief, the soap and water appeared. She carried it to her dresser—holding it carefully as the ship shook again—and gave herself a _very _cold "sponge bath." She grinned a little. That was what her mother had always called it, anyway. She sighed and attempted to turn her thoughts to something else. She tried not to think about her family and the world she had left behind, but these painful memories kept leaking in. The smallest little thing could trigger them. When she learned something fascinating about the ship or space, she always saw in her mind her dad's face glowing with fascination as she explained it to him. When she sat in the mess hall, choking down some concoction of Neelix's, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, her mind gifted her with memories of the meals her family had always shared together. When she overheard someone say something funny she automatically tried to remember it to tell to Trixie. And the thought of how frantic they must be at the way she had simply vanished made her frantic too if she dwelt on it for too long.  
  


Realizing that she was still thinking about her loved ones, Emily resolutely began reviewing the fourteen million things one had to remember to retrieve information from a padd. While she was thus engaged, the ship shook again, and harder this time. Her bowl of water tipped onto the floor, soaking the towel at her feet. "Damn!" It felt to her raw emotions like a deliberate personal attack. She stalked to the replicator, heedless of the fact that she was using up the last of her rations for the week, and shouted furiously, "Give me a towel!"  
  


"Unable to comply," the computer sneered.  
  


"Why the hell not?"  
  


"Replicators are off-line."  
  


"Great," Emily muttered. Grabbing her pajamas from underneath her pillow, she dried herself off as best she could and changed into a fresh pair of clothes. As she sat on the edge of her bed tying her shoes, the ship jolted again. If she had been on her feet, she would have fallen.  
  


_I wonder what's going on?_ she thought, a chill of fear replacing her irritation as her memory supplied her with pictures of all those hair- raising battles in space that had been so entertaining on TV. Remembering that there were windows in the mess hall, she quickly tied her remaining shoe and left her quarters, steadying herself against the doorframe as another jolt hit the ship. If there was something out there hitting them, at least she might be able to see it.  
  


The mess hall was crowded. Apparently, most of the off-duty officers had had the same idea as Emily. The windows were blocked by a row of people in red, green and yellow Starfleet uniforms.  
  


"Ah! Emily! Would you perhaps care for something to eat?"  
  


"I'm not really hungry, Neelix," she told the exuberant Talaxian. "Do you know what's going on? What was the shaking?"  
  


"I'm told that it was just a few minor attacks by Kazon ships. Nothing Voyager couldn't handle. Now really, you should eat. Just a taste of my Laurelian pudding?"  
  


Emily's reply in the negative was drowned out by a collective shout from the officers at the windows. Captain Janeway's voice sounded over the com system: "Red Alert! Battle Stations!"  
  


Almost at once the mess hall was empty. All the officers seemed to know exactly where to go. Kes, who had been stirring something on the stove, gave Neelix a quick kiss, murmuring, "I'll be in Sickbay."  
  


Emily was left with Neelix, both of them staring out the windows at the Kazon ships that seemed to be surrounding their own. She could feel the blood draining from her face. One of the ships fired. The yellow beam arched toward them, and the ship rocked violently. Emily fell down and inadvertently rolled under a table. She picked herself up carefully, favoring her right wrist and hoping it wasn't sprained. Neelix was leaning against the counter, rubbing his shoulder.  
  


"Wh—" Emily's voice wouldn't answer to her command. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Where do non-combatants go during a Red Alert?" she managed.  
  


"They always tell me to stay at my post," the Talaxian told her nervously.  
  


"I—don't have a post," she reminded him.  
  


"Then you'd probably better go to your quarters," he said.  
  


Emily nodded, and turned away. She managed to get to her quarters, despite the bucking and rolling of a ship under fire, and curled up on her bed, trembling, trying to remember all the times the Kazon had attacked the ship and wondering which time this was.  
  


Several minutes later, an enormous explosion sounded from within the ship. The lights went out. Her bed jolted and tipped her out onto the floor. She tried to get up, but her legs didn't seem to want to hold her. The ship pitched again and she slid into a corner of the room. Somewhere nearby she could hear the crackling of fire.  
  


She didn't know how long she laid there, eyes tightly shut, mind gibbering in panic as the ship lurched around wildly and sounds of explosions came from different directions. Finally the explosions stopped, and the ship grew still. Emily opened her eyes warily, only then noticing that they were leaking tears. She uncurled and sat up gingerly, wondering if it was over. As she looked numbly around at the wreckage of her room, heavy footsteps sounded in the hall outside. The crash of doors being broken open was followed by shouts of fear and outrage, phaser fire, and low male voices grating out harsh commands. _Oh, God, we've been boarded!_ The thought flashed through her dazed mind in the split second before the door to her quarters burst open, and a cruel Kazon face glared down at her.  
  


"Come with me!" he yelled, gesturing with his weapon. "Move!"  
  


Emily tried, but her knees buckled and she fell to the floor at his feet. The warrior grunted in disgust, grabbed her carelessly by the arm, yanked her to her feet and pushed her out the door before him. She caught a confused view of halls and turbolift, then, as the Kazon opened the door to what looked like a cargo bay she saw a crowd of sober-faced Starfleet officers. Her captor shoved her inside. She fell again as soon as he let go of her, twisting her injured wrist painfully.  
  


"There's the last of them," she heard the Kazon who had brought her say to a comrade. "We're ready now." The door swooshed shut as he left.  
  


Gentle hands reached down to pull her to her feet, and she tried to help them in that endeavor by forcing her legs to support her weight. Emily looked up into the concerned and semi-familiar faces of two ensigns, a man and a young woman, and tried to thank them for their help, but her voice wouldn't work.  
"Are you all right?" the woman asked.  
  


She nodded, aware that her face was tear-streaked, and that she was trembling with fear. She looked around. On the far side of the room the Captain stood quietly with her senior staff, Neelix and Kes close by. Everyone else stood in random groupings around the room. No one looked afraid, though Emily knew they all must be. Shamed, she wiped her treacherous eyes on her sleeve, ignored the pain in her wrist, and stood straighter, trying to emulate the calm the others displayed. She didn't notice that Ensign Kaplan, the young woman next to her, smiled faintly with both amusement and approbation.  
  


Suddenly the room was enveloped momentarily in a grey fog. When her surroundings were visible again, she and the rest of the crew of Voyager were standing in the hot sun of a desert planet. Wary Kazon warriors with big guns surrounded them, watching them closely. The Kazon who, she realized, must be Maje Cullah approached the Captain, and from where she stood, Emily could just barely make out the words he spat at her.  
  


"A fitting end for a people who would not share their technology. Let's see if you manage to survive without it."


	8. Ensign Hogan

Disclaimer: I only own Emily and the ideas that put her into this world.

Author's Note: I'm having so much fun with this story! Thus, I'm very glad that FF.N is up and running again! *Sends blessings and happy thoughts to whoever worked out all the bugs in the system* Enjoy part 8, and REVIEW! Onward –

Voyager: Part 8 

As Voyager swooped away from them, the stranded crew instinctively moved closer together. The sun beat down on them as Captain Janeway began barking out orders, and in spite of their calm, sober obedience, Emily could see the beginnings of fear and loneliness in the faces of the people nearest her. Neelix turned to the Captain, his uncertain words expressing the sentiments the Starfleet officers were too well-trained ever to say: "Do you really think it's likely that someone will find us, Captain?"

"You're the morale officer, Neelix," Janeway responded, a bit shortly. "You give me an answer."

Neelix appeared to consider this for a moment, then cried loudly, "Help is on the way!" Not a few pairs of lips turned upward at this demonstration of the inextinguishable panache of their Talaxian crewmate.

Emily watched numbly as the Captain, Chakotay, Tuvok and Neelix divided up the crew for reconnaissance. No one called for her to follow them, and she wondered what to do. She studied the toes of her black boots, which had turned a sandy grey color from the thin film of dust that had settled over them. The sound of many such boots crunching the sand underfoot told her that the crew was moving off. _I suppose I'll just trail along behind someone._

"Emily!"

She started and looked up at the sound of her name. Neelix, about to lead his group away, gestured with his head for her to follow him. Grateful at not having been entirely forgotten, she turned and followed them out across the dusty, heat-stricken desert.

Their walk was interminable. They had no way to tell time, so she had no idea how long they had been walking, but it felt like eons. _They didn't show this part on TV, _Emily thought, as she struggled to force her battered and overtaxed body to keep moving_. On the show they just start out, and then – boom! – they're in … they're in …_She lost track of the thought, unable to concentrate her mind sufficiently to remember which scene came after this one. Her head spun, and she focused single-mindedly on her moving feet. _One foot, then the other…One foot, then the other_. It felt as though life had never been anything but this one long trek in the blinding, brilliant heat. Everything else, Voyager, her studies, her holographic training sessions – her family and life at college – seemed a dim dream too far fragmented to recall. _One foot, then the other… One foot, then the other… One foot …_

The lack of other footfalls beside her own finally suggested to her sluggish thoughts the fact that she was lagging behind. When she forced her eyes further ahead than the dusty toes of her shoes, the only people still in sight were Neelix and a single male officer. They were standing in front of a cave cut jaggedly into an outcropping of red rock. Neelix was gesturing to the other man with – _with a bone?_

_Oh, God,_ Emily swayed on her feet as she saw only too clearly the next scene, which her mind had failed to picture earlier. _He's going to start gathering those bones, and then…_Sparks danced before her eyes. She fell to her knees.

_No!_ she thought desperately. _I can't faint! Not now!_ She breathed in the dust-laden air as deeply as she could without choking on it, and dug the heels of her hands into her closed eyes in an effort to clear both her vision and her wavering consciousness. When she looked up, Neelix was disappearing around the rocks. The man looking after him shrugged resignedly and turned back to the mouth of the cave.

_"NO!"_ Emily tried to scream a warning, but all that came from her parched, dust-scratched throat was a small, incoherent croak. She scrambled to her feet, forcing legs that felt like rubber into as much of a run as she could manage. The man, intent on his scavenging, looked neither at her nor at the cave.

In the mouth of the cave, much to Emily's terrified dismay, there appeared two glowing, unblinking yellow eyes. _It's waiting for him to get close enough to it, she thought. __For some reason it mustn't be able to leave the cave. If I can just get there in time – _

The man moved nearer to the cave, still single-mindedly gathering bones. She tried again to shout, but her tongue was glued to the dry roof of her mouth. _Almost there…_

Emily and the monster pounced at the same time. _I'm expendable here, was the girl's last anguished thought in the split second as she jumped to the mouth of the cave and shoved the startled officer away as hard as she could. __They need him more than they need me. Oh God, please –_

She collapsed, and felt a searing pain in her leg as the beast closed its jaws around it. But before it could complete the bite, a strong hand grabbed her arm and pulled. There was a sickening ripping sound – _That's my skin, a corner of her mind realized – and an equally horrible crack – __My arm – and then she and the man fell together downhill, rolling away from the cave._

She got one look into his wide blue eyes as she lay, stunned, on top of him. Then the pain engulfed her, and she slid into merciful unconsciousness.

*            *          *

The first thing she was aware of was the pain. Searing, insistent pain that brought tears to her closed eyes and formed a scream in her throat that she only just managed to choke back. That was important. Choking back the scream.__

"Ensign, don't you know that the proper survival protocol requires that you work in pairs?" a familiar, gentle yet commanding male voice spoke as if from a long distance off. 

_Who…?_

"Captain, this was entirely my fault," another voice interrupted. "I ordered Ensign Hogan to collect those bones by himself. I should have assigned someone else to work with him. I should have made sure Emily could keep up with us –"

"Stop it." The Captain's voice was crisp. 

_Captain?_

"There's no time to worry about blame. Miss Anderson performed beyond anything we could have expected of her, and our job is to make sure this is the last casualty we suffer for a long time! I will not let this destroy my crew! Kes, see what you can do for Miss Anderson. Chakotay, Neelix…" the voice faded into the background.

_Where am I?_

Two gentle, yet firm hands grasped her arm, then – and yanked. The scream she had suppressed earlier broke from her, and the darkness overtook her again.

*       *        *

"Her left arm was broken in two places." a disembodied voice somewhere above her head said gently. "Her right wrist is sprained, and her leg is pretty severely lacerated."

_She's talking about me. Emily's slowly returning consciousness formed the shocked thought._

"She's also dehydrated and completely exhausted."

"And conscious," Emily whispered as she opened her eyes to see Kes's face smiling down at her.

"And she's conscious." Kes's smile widened with relief.

The Captain bent over the Occampa's shoulder, her face mirroring her concern. "How do you feel, Emily?"

Emily considered the question for a moment. "Pretty awful," she said at last, her voice cracking and coming out somewhere between a croak and a whisper.

Kes nodded sympathetically. "I'm not surprised. I've set your arm, and cleaned the injuries to your leg as best as I could with our limited supplies. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about the pain. Try not to move."

Emily nodded minutely.

"Captain." Tuvok's voice carried to the corner of the cave they seemed to have taken shelter in. Janeway reached around Kes to grip Emily's good shoulder in a wordless expression of support and thanks. Then she turned away to consult with her tactical officer.

A man came to Kes's side, carrying a cup, rudely fashioned out of some kind of bark. Kes looked up at him and smiled. "This is Ensign Hogan," she told her patient. "You saved his life."

"Thank you," the man said quietly.

Emily smiled wanly, remembering the strong hand yanking her from the jaws of that – that _thing. "Well you saved me right after I saved you," she croaked, "so let's call ourselves even. You're all right?"_

"Scratched and bruised, but yes, I'm fine. Which is more than I can say for you."

"Yeah."

"Thirsty?" Kes asked.

Emily nodded.

The Occampa took the cup from Ensign Hogan and guided it to her patient's lips with one hand. With the other she raised Emily's head, allowing her to sip the liquid.

Emily wrinkled her nose. "Tastes funny," she observed.

"Well it's …" Kes hesitated, "broth of a kind. You've lost a lot of blood. You need the protein and iron in the – ah – meat that we found."

Emily frowned and peered suspiciously into the cup. Several small, shrimp-like objects were floating in the brown liquid. She gagged. "Grubs!"

Kes sighed. "Yes, but you have to drink it. We haven't found anything else to eat."

Emily uttered a resigned sigh of her own. "Oh well," she said as she dipped her head to take another swallow. "I always thought the food they found in the barren desert in such a short time was a little too convenient."

"What?" Hogan's voice was puzzled.

"Never mind." Her head started to spin, and the world in front of her suddenly seemed softer and less real. Dark spots swam across her vision. "Tired," she managed to croak out before her eyes closed of their own volition and the quiet, soothing darkness greeted her once again.


	9. Basics Part II

Disclaimer: _Star Trek_ is Paramount's, Emily is mine. I guess that means we're sharing. Or I'm stealing – I'm not sure which! Anyway, suing me would be a real waste of time!

Author's Note: Thanks to my faithful readers! Especially those who review! I haven't decided yet just how much I'm going to stick with Paramount's storyline after Basics. I want some events to be new for Emily, but the Temporal Prime Directive struggles could be interesting too. Of course, she's only seen reruns, which means there _are_ gaps in her knowledge… Feedback on this subject is needed and welcomed. Enjoy the new chapter!

Voyager: Part 9 

A baby was crying.

Light hurt her eyes, so she kept them closed. The pain was like an electric current searing through her body. She tried to concentrate on the sounds inside the cave to keep her mind off it, but that only worked for limited intervals.

"…thought it'd be more interesting, fighting for survival on a barren planet."

"Not when it's this hot. We need to conserve our energy and our moisture … means sitting in here all the time."

"…wish there was something to _do…_"

"…wonder if … ever going to get out of here…"

"…let the Captain hear you talking that way."

"OW! … stepped on my _foot,_ damn you!"

"…mean to … Commander clumsy here bumped into me…"

"My apologies, Ensign Robertson."

"...quite alright, Sir."

The fragmented pieces of quiet conversations droned on, losing their meaning as the pain became harder and harder to ignore. The baby continued to wail. Emily bit her lips together so hard she thought she might have drawn blood, holding back a groan which, if it escaped, would quickly turn into uncontrollable screaming. _Don't remember ever feeling… this much…pain…_she thought dazedly. _Can't stand it …Can't…_

"…wonder what's happening on Voyager…"

"…kidding?…Probably halfway to the next system by now…"

"…maybe Paris…"

_Shut up! _Emily screamed at them in her mind. _How can you sit there and talk on and on and on? Can't you see I'm dying over here? Shut up! Shut up! Go away! Just – go _away_! _Tears slipped down her cheeks. The baby kept howling.

"…a fever…nothing I can do…"

"…you sure?"

"…sorry Samantha. Maybe if Tom…"

"… is Miss Anderson…?" A new voice. The Captain's. Moving nearer.

No, please…just…go away… "She's conscious, I think. But she's in a lot of pain." Ensign Hogan spoke from his self-appointed, permanent position on her left side. 

"Miss Anderson?"

Emily took a deep breath. "C-Captain?"

She felt a gentle hand take her own. "Don't try to talk. I just wanted to make sure you were still with us."

"Barely."

A small chuckle as the hand gripped hers more tightly. "Hold on, Emily. Hold on."

"Yes, Captain."

Another squeeze and the hand let hers go. Ensign Hogan gently raised her head. "Drink some more of this if you can," he said gently, holding the bark cup to her lips.

"Try…" She managed a few swallows before her throat closed, and she felt the broth slop over her chin and onto her shirt. She raised her good hand and feebly pushed the cup away. "Can't…"

"Okay." He lowered her head gently back onto the crumpled outer uniform shirt someone had donated. 

Emily scraped her nails on the hard stone floor of the cave. _Oh, God it hurts! Please make it go away. Let me be unconscious. Let me die even! Just make it stop. I want to scream. I'm going to scream. I can't bear this…_But some until now undiscovered corner of her mind answered, _Yes you can. You don't have a choice. This is just something to be endured._

Emily sighed – a choked sigh somewhere between a groan and a sob. _This is just something to be endured._

*        *        *

A hand on her forehead. She opened her eyes_. _"Mama?" she asked, utterly bewildered."How did you get here?"

"You have a fever, Emily."

"I do? Then – Voyager – the time anomaly – it was all a dream?"

The hand left her forehead. Footsteps moving away_. _"…must have been some kind of venom on the teeth of that life form in the cave..."

"Mama? Don't go! Don't leave, please! I want to go home!"__

"Easy, Emily. You're delirious." Ensign Hogan's voice. Or was it her father's? Which world was real? Whose hand was it resting comfortingly on her shoulder? She blinked and looked around. She was in her old room at home. In her bed, covered with the white down comforter with the pretty floral pattern that her aunt Carol had given her. The blue carpeting on the floor set off the cinimon-colored walls, and sunlight was streaming in the window across from her, highlighting the whiteness of the papers on her desk beneath it. And there was someone beside her. It was – 

_A TV, showing a picture of a cave. Inside the cave, the crew of Voyager sat or milled around, stranded on a desert planet._

"This is very thoughtful of you, Tuvok," Commander Chakotay was telling the tactical officer, gesturing to the bow and arrow the Vulcan held in his hand. "But my tribe never used bows and arrows and I've never even shot one. 

"This is mine," Tuvok responded. "I used to teach archery at the academy."

The frame changed. Ensign Hogan was at the entrance to the cave, gathering bones. "Look out!" Emily screamed, but he didn't seem to hear her. She wanted to run toward him – push him out of the way, but she couldn't. She wasn't there. She watched the TV  in horror as the monster leaped out of the cave and swallowed the helpless man. Then it looked up and saw her. It's head grew larger and larger until it filled the screen. It opened its mouth and closed its jaws around her head, pulling her into it's world; swallowing her whole…There was a flash of blinding light…

Emily screamed.

*           *          *

The ground was shaking. People were muttering nervously. We're under attack! Emily thought in panic. The Kazon. They're firing on the ship! I should be in my quarters…

She tried to get up, but another jolt sent her slipping over the hard stone of the cave

Wait a minute…Cave? 

Her inert form rolled up against the boots of someone standing near her and stopped. Emily looked up into the eyes of – 

An angry Kazon warrior. "Come with me, Emily," he said. "Hurry!" He grabbed her under the arms and began dragging her toward the entrance to the cave.

Cave?

"No!" Emily began to struggle wildly. They wouldn't get her this time. She had to escape! She had to warn the Captain! Maybe there was still time to save the ship! "Help! Let me go!"

"Emily, I'm trying to help you!" the man's exasperated voice said. "We've got to get out of this cave before we're trapped here!"

Cave?

"No! Help! Captain! Captain! I know you told me not to tell anyone about the future, but the Kazon are going to take over this ship and Ensign Hogan is going to die! Let me go!"

"Emily! Dammit! I am Ensign Hogan! Look at me! Look!"

Emily stopped struggling and twisted to look into the officer's frantic blue eyes. The same ones she'd seen below her just after he pulled her away from the… Ensign Hogan wasted no time. As soon as she stopped struggling, he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and ran after the rest of the crew. 

The Captain stood at the entrance to the cave, waiting for them. "Hurry!" she cried needlessly as he pelted out. She came behind, practically on his heels.

Every step Hogan took jarred Emily's broken bones and aching body, until the pain became so great that her wish for unconsciousness was finally fully granted.


	10. Sickbay Again

Disclaimer: Need I bother? (Hint: I am not rich.)

Author's Note: This is horribly short, I know, especially for the first update in months. It's a filler chapter so that I can get on with the regular story. I do plan to finish this fic, but I've run into some difficulties. Please read the Author's Plea for Help (next chapter) and respond if you can assist me! And review, of course!

Voyager: Part 10 

It was dark. She was utterly comfortable. It was the first clear sensation she could recall in – how long? She was lying down, she realized, as her mind swam toward consciousness. There was soft fabric under her head and tucked around her chin.

_Bed,_ her sluggish thoughts finally dredged up the word. _I'm in bed._

Memory returned in disconnected fragments. A flash of blinding light…Captain Kathryn Janeway's face…the face of an ugly Kazon warrior…the shaking of a ship under fire…A TV screen showing the Voyager crew milling around a cave…the jaws of a monster closing around her leg…

The last fragment of memory directed her muzzy attention to her leg. It didn't hurt. 

"_You have a fever, Emily." _ 

Someone had said that.

_Maybe it was all a dream…Maybe I did have a fever, and now I'm home, in bed…_

The joy and hope that knifed through her at that almost frightened her, especially when her next coherent thought surfaced. _My eyes…are closed. When I open them, where will I be?_

Fearfully, Emily allowed her eyes to open. She stared blankly up at the dull, grey ceiling of Voyager's sickbay. _Neelix was right,_ was her first irrelevant thought. _The ceiling is hideous._ Then tears blurred her view of it as disappointment fell into her stomach with an almost audible plop. She was never going to see her home again. _Oh, please, God, no…_

"We're glad to have you back with us, Emily," the Doctor's clipped voice said as his ascetic face loomed into view. Emily bit her lip and nodded, not trusting her voice.

The Doctor's face grew concerned. "Are you in pain?" he queried anxiously.

She shook her head.

"You're sure?" the Doctor persisted, running his medical tricorder the length of her body in another quick scan.

Emily swallowed the disappointment, and the odd, helpless anger that was obstructing her vocal cords. "I'm sure, Doctor. Thank you," she croaked.

"Well, nothing here indicates anything wrong…" The Doctor's voice trailed away as he surveyed her anxiously. Emily's throat closed, and the tears that pricked her eyes threatened to spill over. She closed her eyes to keep them back, and turned her face away. 

"I'm fine," she whispered.

The Doctor walked around the bed, so that he was again facing her. "Miss Anderson, clearly _something_ is upsetting you." 

Emily knew that voice well enough from her television to read the real concern the impatient tone was thinly masking. She opened her eyes to look into his keen, kind ones. "For a minute, before I opened my eyes, I thought I was home," she whispered. "That's all. I'm just homesick, Doctor." The tears began to fall then, and try as she would, she could not stop them.

The Doctor's hand jerked towards her, then back, as if unsure how to respond. Finally he reached out to lay it awkwardly on her shoulder. The gentle gesture of comfort contrasted sharply with the slightly acerbic commentary that issued from his lips as he watched her cry.

"Hrumph. You're as bad as the Captain: never wanting to admit a weakness; never letting anyone else see your pain. If you let all that build up inside you, it's _bound_ to come out eventually, and then we get a massive flood of tears." Hw paused. "In your case, that is. The Captain often throws things."

This confidence elicited a weak smile that in no way diminished the flow of tears. "I'm sorry…" Emily made another vain attempt to stop crying.

That gentle hand squeezed her shoulder slightly, as the clipped, precise voice continued. "Don't be sorry. Cry as much as you need to. I'm the closest thing you'll get to a Ship's Counselor anyway, so you're in the right place, I suppose. Although, I'm sure there are others who would be better able to show sympathy…"

A laugh choked through her tears. She reached over and squeezed the hand that lay on her shoulder. "I don't know, you're pretty good at it." She took a deep breath. "Am I allowed to sit up?"

The Doctor stepped back. "Yes, but please do not attempt to stand. You have recovered from your fever, and your broken bones have been mended, but you are severely undernourished and still a bit dehydrated. You're going to be rather weak for quite a while, and I don't want you to leave sickbay for several days yet." 

She nodded, struggling into a sitting position and scrubbing tears off her face with the tissues he handed her. "Obviously we're back on Voyager," she said suddenly, remembering the Kazon attack. "What happened? Did Tom – ?"

"Mr. Paris brought the Talaxians to our aid, and with the help of myself and Mr. Sudor, they regained control of the ship."

Emily nodded. "I see. How long…?"

"You've been in sickbay for nearly twenty-four hours now." The Doctor anticipated the rest of her question. When she sat silent, he added, "Would you like something to eat? A grilled cheese sandwich? And perhaps a cup of mint tea?"

Startled, Emily gave him a weak grin. "That sounds great, actually. How did you know…"

Again he anticipated the question. "That you liked grilled cheese and mint tea? I took the liberty of looking at the replicator logs in your quarters, so that I would know what to serve you when you awoke. It's very important that you regain your strength."

"That was thoughtful, Doctor."

Looking a bit uncomfortable, the Doctor turned toward the sickbay replicators. "It was Kes's idea, actually," he admitted.

Emily grinned more broadly this time. "Of course."


	11. Nightmares

_Author's Note: This chapter is gratefully dedicated to all those who answered my plea for help, suggesting everything from some incredible Voyager websites, to sites from which it is theoretically possible to download the episodes themselves! (Though not on my computer, unfortunately…) **Thank you all! You've made the continuation of this story possible!**_

_Disclaimer: Star Trek = Paramount's. Emily = Mine._

Chapter 11

_Emily sits with her roommate, Barb, watching television. It is a strange parody of Star Trek: Voyager done as a horror movie._

An insane Q changes Tom Paris and Carl Hogan into Qs. They feel much larger than everyone else, but to the others they look the same. They begin to sabotage the ship, and Captain Janeway and the others try  to find a way to return them to normal. Meanwhile, the Q who changed them is wreaking havoc on the details of everyone's lives. Kes and Tuvok become stranded in the future as old people. Chakotay turns to necromancy and brings Seska back to life. The crew becomes separated. The camera zooms in on Chakotay's distorted, haunted face, as horror music plays. The picture fades for a commercial break and Barb gets up to make popcorn.

_Captain Janeway and B'Elanna are still on the bridge, working desperately to find a way to stop the madness. Janeway goes to her ready room, and when she returns to the bridge, it has become the kitchen of a 21st Century house. "Captain?" B'Elanna inquires cautiously. "No, I'm still myself," Janeway replies. But she begins bustling around the kitchen like a housewife, rather than joining B'Elanna at the table with her padd. The camera zooms in on B'Elanna's frightened face as she watches her altered Captain. The music plays, and the picture fades again. Barb gets out a beer._

_"This is ridiculous," the Captain blurts. "If I'm still myself, why am I acting like this?" Then she and B'Elanna notice the baby in a highchair at the table. Janeway sits down across from B'Elanna and they work over their padds with increasingly frantic concentration. The baby starts to wail, an intrusion into their work. Without thinking, Janeway slaps it. Then she recoils in horror. "What are we becoming," she murmurs, "that I am hitting a defenseless baby?" The camera zooms in on Janeway's face, hollow-cheeked, with the spectre of madness lurking in her eyes. The music plays._

_The only thing she and B'Elanna can do is channel their terror into rage at the Continuum for allowing an insane Q to tear apart their lives. They must stop this! They decide to go try to find a sane Q who can end this horror. But as they journey, Janeway begins to wonder if even the Continuum can stop an omnipotent being who has lost all grip on its sanity…_

Emily woke in a sweat, trembling from head to foot, horror music still ringing in her ears. "Computer," she gasped, "lights. Full illumination."

The lights flashed on, and Emily sat up, trying to steady her racing heart by concentrating on the familiar things in the room. Large pictures of the Arizona desert that was her home on her walls. A small bookshelf with a growing collection of 21st Century fantasy literature. The multi-colored throw rug on her floor. Her replicator in the corner. 

She was still shivering. "C-Computer, music. Mozart's _Clarinet Concerto_, third movement. As the joyful, bubbling sounds greeted her ears, drowning out the echo of the strange nightmare music, Emily lay back down again, forcing herself to relax, muscle by muscle. She thought if she could just relax enough, perhaps she would be able to get back to sleep. It had only been a nightmare, after all. Qs didn't really go insane … Did they?

She remained on her back, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, until the computerized alarm told her it was time to get up.

*       *        *

Emily's weary sigh of incomprehension turned suddenly into a quiet, but bitter string of curses as the padd she was using obstinately refused to understand what she wanted of it. Only barely suppressing a shriek of total frustration, she unthinkingly hurled the padd viciously from her. It hit the wall of her quarters with a smash, then fell to the ground with a last, disconsolate beep.

Emily stared at it in shock. What was wrong with her? She _never_ allowed frustration to overcome her to the point where she destroyed what she was working on! She was a _musician_, for crying out loud! What if she'd been holding her clarinet? Tears that came all too readily these days stung her eyes as she scooted over to view the wrecked remnant of her uncharacteristic temper tantrum. The padd was in pieces, obviously ruined. 

Her hands shook as she gathered it up and dumped it into the replicator. "Computer, recycle." The computer beeped obligingly, and Emily shook her head vigorously in an effort to clear it of the fog of self-pitying tears. _What on earth did I do that for?_ She demanded silently. _I bet it takes more rations than I have to replicate a padd. And I can't very well ask for a new one. I can just see myself: 'What happened to the one you had?' 'Oh, that? I threw it at the wall because I couldn't understand third-grade algorithms.' Bright, Anderson, very bright._

Thoroughly discouraged, Emily slid her back down the wall until she was huddled on the floor beside the replicator. She clasped her arms about her legs, pulling them to her chest and laid her hot forehead on her knees. Learning enough about the 24th Century to fill some place on Voyager, however humble, had seemed a worthy and attainable goal when she had suggested it to the Captain nearly three months ago. Now, she wasn't so sure. _If I can't even figure out a bunch of basic math stuff they teach third-graders, how am I ever going to be of any use at all to these people?_

Her deep homesickness seared inside her like some kind of infection. She missed her sister. She missed her parents. She missed studying music and history, which she loved passionately and where she was at the top of her class. She missed having people around her who, like her, were scared and uncertain of themselves. In her own time, Emily was one of the more well-adjusted of her age-group. Outwardly always cheerful and reliable, she had usually been the one to receive the confidences of her more insecure peers. There had been about her an aura of support and compassion that people instinctively trusted. She had also been one of the more disciplined and dedicated of her friends, carefully studying and practicing her music while they were out partying. But here, in the constant presence of the blindingly intelligent Starfleet personnel who faced the attack of a swarm of alien ships with the conscious calm and steadiness Emily usually reserved for a musical recital, Emily felt stupid, insignificant, and useless. And nearly every night, there was that dream…

_If I just had a clarinet,_ she thought, half-coherent thoughts buzzing around her head like dizzy bees. _If only there were some use for my real talents…If only I weren't so utterly stupid about these algorithms…What are they, anyway? I don't remember learning anything remotely like these…Oh, God…if You exist in this dimension…help me find a niche here… some place where I can be of use… I can't seem to do anything right…And I'm so very, very lonely…_

The girl sat there for another long moment. But slowly, inexorably, the same dumb, inarticulate courage that had sustained her during that hazy time in the cave came to her rescue. She looked up, wiped her eyes, and got slowly to her feet. "Computer," she said, her voice suddenly as calm and steady as any Starfleet officer's, "do I have enough replicator rations left to replicate another padd of the type I just recycled?"

"Affirmative," the computer's distant voice responded.

"Then please do it," she told it.

There was an obliging beep, and in seconds a new padd materialized in front of her. Emily picked it up and stared at it almost blankly. "Time," she requested absently.

"Twenty-three hundred hours."

 "Ugh." She ought to go to bed, but the idea of sleeping did not appeal to her at all. _'To sleep, perchance to dream…' Who said that? Poe?_ No matter. No, she certainly didn't want to go to bed. "Could I have some coffee?" she asked the computer.

"Negative. Insufficient replicator rations remaining."

Emily sighed. Then there was nothing for it but to go to the mess hall and brave whatever disgusting stimulant Neelix was brewing these days. He always left something hot in the mess hall for tired crewmembers on night shifts. _This might be for the best,_ she told herself, taking the padd with her as she exited her quarters. _I probably need a change of scene. I've been in my quarters since lunch._

Emily traversed the halls of Voyager with ease, now, and if she was inwardly jumping at every shadow created by the odd, dim lighting of "night" aboard the ship, nothing of this fear showed in her carriage or on her face. She reached the mess hall, slipped silently into the dim room, and headed directly for the part of the kitchen that contained Neelix's nighttime offering to his weary crewmates.

Setting down the coffee pot – _for lack of a better term, _she thought, a wry smile tugging at her otherwise expressionless face –  and turning around, Emily almost ran into the form standing at a window, its silhouette blotting out the stars in a rough, humanoid shape. Fear leaped into her throat, and she started violently and stopped very suddenly. The hot stimulant in her hand sloshed over the rim of her cup and burned her hands, and she let out an involuntary squeak. This caused the person in front of her to start also, and as it turned around, she could make out the kind features of Ensign Harry Kim.

"I'm sorry," Emily said, softly so her voice wouldn't shake. She carefully pried first one tension-stiff hand, and then the other, from her cup and surreptitiously wiped them on her jeans. "You startled me."

"Then I guess we're even," Harry chuckled. "I didn't know there was anyone else in here." As he stepped further into the dim light, Emily noticed that his eyes had the beginnings of dark rings around them, and that his face looked strained. 

"I'm sorry," Emily apologized again. "I just needed something to drink. I can see that I'm interrupting you when you'd prefer to be alone, so I'll leave."

"No, please don't," the Starfleet officer said warmly. "Unless you want to, that is. I'm glad to see another person with insomnia tonight. A little human company would probably do me some good. Tom says I've been too morose lately." He smiled and gestured gallantly to a nearby table. "Computer, more light."

Responding to the kind look and gesture as a plant would to a glimpse of sunlight, Emily slid into a chair and looked across the table at the young Ensign. "I'll take you up on that, Ensign Kim," she said gratefully. "I think I need human company, too. I've been alone in my quarters studying since noon, and I don't think I could bear to go back there."

"Is that what you do all the time, Miss Anderson?" he asked curiously. "Study? And please," he added, "it's just Harry."

"Then you should call me Emily," the girl replied quickly. Then she added in answer to his question, "Yes, when the Captain asked me what I would like to do aboard this ship, I told her I'd like to learn enough to do some useful job here, so I'm not just a drain on your resources." She flushed and looked down. "I must admit that I may have been too confident about my abilities. I can't seem to get past a bunch of basic third-grade mathematical algorithms. And I've been trying to understand them for weeks!"

Harry reached across the table to touch the padd she had laid beside her. "May I take a look?" he asked.

She nodded and he slid the padd over to his side of the table, reading it with a little frown of concentration. "I can see why you'd be confused," he said finally. "I don't think this system was too well-known at the beginning of the 21st Century. Would you like me to try explaining it to you?"

"I – yes, if you don't mind," Emily stammered.

He stood up an moved to the chair next to her, laying the padd between them. "What this is," he began, "is a whole different system of computation. Instead of thinking in groups of ten, you think in pairs. Like this…"

Emily watched and listened intently; then, as comprehension slowly dawned, with increasing fascination. Eventually, Harry slid the padd over to her so that she could try a computation, and when it came out correctly he slapped her on the back so hard that she nearly spat out the mouthful of now cold stimulant she had just taken. She swallowed desperately, then choked, and both of them burst into relieved laughter.

"Thank you," she said, turning weary but grateful eyes on him when their laughter subsided. "I think I'll be able to do this now."

"You will," Harry said. "You caught onto that really quickly."

Emily's eyes narrowed, taking in his tired face. "And I've kept you up far too late," she said. "You're on Alpha Shift tomorrow, aren't you? You should go to bed."

The smile slipped off his face, to be replaced by the strain she had seen earlier. "You go on," he said. "I don't think I'm tired enough to sleep yet."

"Nightmares?" she asked quickly, thinking of her own.

He stared. "How did you know?"

She just shrugged. "Want to talk about it?"

He sighed. "You remember when Tom and I were convicted of that bombing on Akritiri?" Harry said slowly.

"That's what you'd supposedly done?" Emily said. "I only knew you'd been put in prison for some reason."

"They convicted us of a bombing, and put us in this prison that was really this huge, isolated satellite," Harry said, his voice growing more toneless as he continued. "I guess even when the Captain found the real bombers and offered to trade them for us, the Akritirians wouldn't deal with her. So the bombers themselves lead her to the prison in exchange for their freedom."

Emily drew in her breath suddenly. "I remember," she said. "They made you wear those horrible metal clamps that disrupted your nervous systems…" she trailed off at the surprised look in his eyes. "I – I saw it on TV," she stammered. "I just didn't realize while it was happening that that's what was going on. I'm not exactly a bridge officer."

Harry suddenly couldn't meet her eyes. "So then you know," he said softly. "You know what I almost did to Tom…" he slapped the table with the flat of his hand and raised his eyes, staring at her without really seeing her. "I just – I can't get it out of my head. And when I go to sleep, I dream about it. The rage I felt – that incredible rage. And I almost killed my best friend. I mean, how could I ever even _want_ to do that to him?" 

Emily drew breath to speak, aching to quench the anguish that spilled from his eyes, but then she stopped and let it out again, unsure how to respond. She dropped her gaze from his face and noticed his hands, clenched together on the table next to hers. Impulsively she covered his white-knuckled fingers with her own.

"It's – a hard thing, isn't it?" she said finally, hesitantly.

"What?" he asked, staring as if he'd forgotten she was there.

"When – when something forces us to confront the part of ourselves that's capable of doing something as hideous as killing a friend."

He looked away from her, and she felt a tear fall onto her hands, still clasped over his. "I didn't think I _was_ capable of that," he said, in a hoarse voice that was almost a whisper.

"I think maybe we all are," she said slowly. "I think the emotions that motivate that kind of actions – or at least, the capacity to feel those emotions – are in all of us. Our depth of feeling is part of what makes us human."

He stared at her.

"It's just that – most of the time we're in control," she went on. "We recognize the emotion and can consciously reject the violent action it prompts. But then if something were to take the control away…"

"And that's what the clamps did," he said, a tortured look in his eyes as he nodded his head. "They took our control away, piece by piece. I wonder if that's how it feels to go insane?"

Wisps of her dream came back to her, making her shudder convulsively. "Maybe," she said. "But my point is that any human in the position you were in could have done what you almost did. That doesn't make it okay. It shouldn't be an easy memory for you, I don't think. I mean, there's darkness in all of us, I guess, and we forget that at our peril."

He nodded again, slowly, and she could feel some of the intolerable tension easing from him.

"And Harry," she added, gripping his hands tightly and putting every ounce of her remaining energy into her direct gaze, "you didn't do it. You _didn't_."

He heaved a deep breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a sob. "Yeah," he said finally. "You're right. I didn't."

They sat there in silence for another long moment. Then Emily slowly withdrew her hands, giggling a little as Harry suppressed a yawn. "Think you'll be able to sleep, now?" she asked lightly.

"I think so," he said in a surprised tone. Slowly, they stood and left the mess hall. Harry punched her lightly on the shoulder as they parted ways. "You get some sleep, too," he told her, with an elder brotherly air that touched her. "And I hope we'll see you out and about tomorrow. Don't stay cooped up in your quarters so much. It isn't good for you."

She grinned. "Yes, sir!"


	12. Routine

Author's Note: _I have not given up on this! My fanfiction updates are simply very sporadic indeed because I'm concentrating almost exclusively on my original fiction. To see that, please go to _. _Enjoy chapter 12, and look for more in the near future, especially if my other stories keep being so uncooperative!_

Disclaimer: _You know the routine. _Star Trek: Voyager _is Paramount's. I'm not making any money off this – or off anything else, really, so suing me would be a real waste of time. Emily is mine, so hands off unless you've got my permission!_

Routine

"It is now 05:30," the computer announced in its dry, emotionless, female voice. Emily groaned, rolled over and pulled the covers over her head, and drifted back to sleep.

"It is now 05:45," the computer mentioned, several decibels louder, just as she had asked it to do the night before.

"Dammit." Emily reluctantly sat up, rubbing her eyes. "The only problem with using the ship's computer for an alarm is that you can't hit it when it wakes you up." She scooted out of bed and slumped in the direction of the sonic shower, shedding her standard-issue nightgown and grumbling about how it really was too bad that the Captain would throw her in the brig if she smashed the ship's computer. That was, of course, if Lieutenant Torres didn't get to her first and rip off her head.

At 06:00, showered, dressed, and considerably more coherent, Emily laughed at herself. Smash the ship's computer indeed! She'd have to smash the ship to do that! It would take another really big ship or a Q! At the thought of Q, she shivered a little. She'd had that same damned dream again last night. It was becoming so routine that she was almost used to it, but it never failed to cause her to wake up in the middle of the "night" in a cold sweat. "Computer, coffee. Hot, with cream and sugar."

The replicator beeped compliantly, and Emily sipped the steaming mixture happily. When her largely self-imposed schedule became demanding enough to require her to get up at five-thirty, Emily had taken her cue from Captain Janeway and begun saving enough replicator rations to make one cup of coffee every morning. Like the Captain, she drank the cup luxuriantly within the confines of her quarters, to avoid Neelix's suggestions for substitutes and guilt trips over wasting replicator rations. _At least he spares me the one about being an example to the crew,_ she thought with some amusement, carrying her coffee into the middle of the room and setting it by her on the floor as she began stretching out. _He knows too well that I'm not an example to anyone on this ship. It's kind of a nice change, actually, even though it makes me feel invisible sometimes._

"It is now 06:50."

"Oh shut up," Emily muttered, scrambling up from the floor. She had finished stretching, and had been lounging against her bed, finishing her coffee and trying to convince herself not to fall asleep again. She had quickly found that one of the best ways to keep herself on schedule, since no teachers or parents now monitored her actions, was to ask the computer to remind her of the time periodically. Ten to seven meant that she was due in the mess hall. After her midnight conversation with Harry Kim, Emily had begun eating breakfast with him and Lieutenant Paris. Usually she brought her padds, and one or the other of them would explain anything she was having trouble with. Then she would eat and watch them kid each other, and learn what was happening on the bridge. So far, nothing much out of the routine had shown its face, but after the swarm of alien ships that had attacked them a month or so ago, the crew was content that it remain boring.

Paris waved her over to their table in the corner after she loaded her plate with what she devoutly hoped was eggs and toast. She had bypassed what looked like a pot of boiled Brussels sprouts, despite Neelix's most persuasive urgings to try "just a tiny bite."

"Anything new happening?" she asked a yawning Harry Kim as she sat down next to him.

He shook his head and yawned again. "Nope, not much. A nebula that the Captain found entertaining, and a routine exchange of greetings with two cargo ships, one embassy from a nearby planet, and one military ship headed somewhere else."

"The good news," Paris put in, giving Harry a light slap upside the head as he yawned again, "is that trading with those cargo ships provided us with enough sources of energy that we won't have to reduce the supply of replicator rations like Commander Chakotay threatened last week."

Emily smiled. "Good. Glad to know my coffee is safe," she laughed.

"Neelix was just telling me you don't drink coffee," a new voice put in. They turned, and Paris gestured Ensign Andrew Hogan to the free seat by him.

"I don't drink Neelix's coffee substitutes," Emily answered him, with a conspiratorial grin, "so it's much more convenient for Neelix to think that I don't drink stimulants at all."

Hogan laughed.

"I'll remember that if I ever need to blackmail you," Paris chuckled.

Emily rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Tom. What on earth could you ever need from me? Talk about the low man on the totem pole…"

"What?"

"Sorry. 20th Century expression meaning lowest possible rank. The person everyone is qualified to order around."

"Oh. 'Low man on the totem pole.' Have to remember that one."

"How are your studies going?" Andrew asked.

"Well, for once," Emily smiled. "The math is hard but not impossible, and I'm finding the 24th Century historical perspective on the 20th Century absolutely enthralling. It's nice to know that I wasn't totally mistaken in my assessment of my own time period, and yet, there were a lot of things going on that I missed or couldn't have known about. There's a lot that I wish I could tell my parents."

"These are the anarchist, Catholic Worker parents you were telling me about?" Hogan chuckled.

"Catholic Worker?" Harry questioned.

"Another 20th Century phenomenon. It's – it _was _– a movement dedicated to radical social change based on the concept of personalism and the values of Christianity." She hesitated. "Christianity as conveyed in the Gospels, I mean, not as practiced by the majority of 20th Century Westerners."

Tom grinned. "There was a difference, they say." 

Harry stood. "Paris, we're going to be late."

"Yes, you are, and I'm due in sickbay." Emily stood too, and began gathering up everyone's dirty plates and silverware. "Time flies when you're having fun," she added lightly.

Paris grinned as he and the two ensigns headed for the door. "Now that one I know," he laughed.

Emily dumped the dirty dishes into one of the replicators. "Computer, recycle." Then she headed out as well, and turned her steps in the direction of sickbay. She had spent so much time there recuperating after that incident with the Kazon, that she had learned a lot about the Doctor and Kes's routine. She found it more interesting than she had thought, and when she was well enough, she had begun helping out. Kes, delighted, had started showing her how to use a medical tricorder and diagnose various common ailments. Now Emily spent the first two hours of the Alpha Shift with Kes, either in sickbay or herponics, learning what the brilliant young Occampan had to teach. Kes's sense of wonder was infectious, and those two hours were Emily's favorite part of the day.

This morning, Emily found that many crew members were reporting to sickbay with symptoms of Arethian flu. After receiving a preventative inoculation from the Doctor, she spent the entire morning with Kes learning to replicate and refill hyposprays for treatment, and listening to the Doctor's running lecture on the causes, symptoms and various treatments of the illness, interspersed with terse and sometimes sarcastic comments directed towards his patients. 

It was somewhat more complex than other varieties of flu, the Doctor noted, because many humans were allergic to the most effective treatment, while Vulcans and Romulans were allergic to the second most effective. Emily's smart-mouthed query as to whether he had treated any Romulans lately did not go over well with the Doctor, but she saw Kes stifle a giggle with her hand, and Ensign Robertson, one of the unfortunate patients, laughed outright. (This proved to be a tactical error on the ensign's part, because the Doctor promptly decided that the young man was allergic to the most effective treatment, and administered the second, which, as Emily had just learned, produced an unusual side effect in humans, making them burst out in painless but very eye-catching red spots.)

Emily left sickbay at 10:30, half an hour later than usual. So many crewmembers seemed to be coming down with the flu that the Doctor had recommended that everyone come in for a preventative treatment, and sickbay had been very busy. She lagged a little as she walked back to her room. She'd been on her feet for two and a half hours, and she was quite happy to curl up in the comfortable chair she'd replicated for her quarters and study.

"It is now 13:00 hours." The computer jolted Emily halfway out of the fascinating intricacies of late 21st century interstellar politics. Most of her attention still focused on the padd, Emily wandered across the room to the replicator and requested a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of water. It beeped and produced the food. Engrossed in the description of a power struggle between the overbearing Vulcans and the impetuous humans, Emily took her food and slid down the wall to the floor by the replicator, reading avidly and taking an absent bite of her cooling sandwich every now and then.

"It is now 14:30 hours."

Emily looked up, startled, from an eyewitness account of the first mission of the original Enterprise. How had it gotten so late? She hadn't done her mathematics yet, and already she only had half an hour to stretch her stiff muscles before her self-defense class. She got up quickly, tossed the history padd on her bed, kicked off her shoes and slid into a butterfly position in the middle of her floor.

At 14:55, she was hurrying along the now-familiar halls to the holodeck. Crewmembers, used to seeing her flying past on some errand or another, grinned and waved in response to her nods, and some even called out greetings. Her holographic coach was unimpressed with her tardiness (all of two minutes and forty seconds behind time), and began the session with twenty five laps around the training area as punishment. Then came the hour spent learning to use a standard issue phaser, followed by another hour of Official Starfleet Karate (Emily continued to use that name just to provoke her coach).

At five-thirty (_17:30_, she reminded herself) she arrived back at her quarters, sweaty and absolutely drained of energy, as usual. "Computer, water," she gasped at the replicator, which obliged. Emily drained the glass in one long gulp and headed for the shower.

At 19:00, after a shower and an hour flat on her back engaged in recreational reading (she was tearing through Rowlings' seventh _Harry Potter_ book at the moment, which of course hadn't been written yet in her own time), Emily joined Ensign Hogan and Ensign Robertson for dinner in the mess hall. 

"How was your day?" Andrew asked her as she slid her tray onto the table and sat down next to him.

"Great," Emily answered, only a bit less than truthfully. "I'm exhausted, though."

"Can't keep up with your own schedule?" John teased.

Emily's smile was a bit strained. "I'm sure I'll get used to it. I feel so behind here, I want to catch up as soon as possible." Deftly turning the conversation from herself before either young man could respond, she added mischievously, "By the way, I like your new look."

John Robertson flushed at this mention of the bright red spots that covered his face and hands. "I swear to God, I'm going to find some way to do the same to the Doctor," he grumbled. "I wonder how he'd like to grow whiskers and a tail?"

Hogan stifled a whoop of laughter with the back of his hand. "You know, I'm pretty sure that could be arranged," he mentioned casually, eyes dancing.

John's eyes widened. "You mean…"

"You guys, you wouldn't!" Emily protested.

Andrew winked at John, then turned to her solicitously. "No, of course not, dear. We were only speculating."

"I should hope so," Emily said stiffly. "If I had any suspicion that you were serious I'd have to…well—"

"What?" John asked, somewhat apprehensively.

"Well I'd, you know, remind you not to forget the ears." 

The mental picture of the stern Doctor sporting a cat's tail, ears and whiskers was too much. All three of them burst loudly into laughter, startling the Captain and Chakotay at the next table.

"Well, I'm glad to see you youngsters having so much fun," Chakotay twinkled, as he picked up his plate and rose from his seat.

"Uh—" John muttered uncomfortably.

"We were admiring John's trendy new – um – skin tone." Emily saved the situation.

"I'll thank you not to mock those suffering the tender mercies of Arethian flu treatment." The Captain rose also, to stand and glare sternly at them.

The three of them rose also, in deference to protocol, and Emily winced. Was the Captain truly so humorless in real life? Momentarily cowed, she caught Andrew's eyes, then followed his change in gaze to the Captain's hands, placed firmly on her hips. What cleverly applied makeup concealed on her face showed up clearly on her brightly spotted hands. Emily giggled. The Captain winked, and she and Chakotay left the mess hall.

"Coming to Sandrine's tonight?" Andrew wanted to know, once the three had quenched their disrespectful laughter.

Emily shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm awfully tired."

John frowned. "Having been through the Academy, I guess I'm the last one to say this, but don't you think maybe you're pushing yourself a little too hard? I mean, this must have been a huge adjustment for you to make, and everything, and now you're pushing yourself to exhaustion every day."

Emily sighed and smiled into two pairs of worried eyes. "I'm fine, John, really. Thank you both for worrying. I just wish—" she stopped for a second, then went on, "You know, I'm a musician. I think what I really miss most is my clarinet. If I could just _play_ a little every day…" she trailed off as she noticed both men giving her puzzled looks. "What?" she asked. "Is that really so strange?"

Andrew shook his head. "No," he said quickly. "Not at all. It's just that – Ensign Kim didn't bring his clarinet with him either, but he just saved up his replicator rations and replicated one. Why couldn't you…?"

Emily smacked her forehead with both hands and stared at her two friends in such abject dismay that they both laughed. "Why didn't I _think_ of that?"

"Tell you what," John added, glancing at Andrew. "We'll all three pool our rations so you can get one tonight. You shouldn't have to be without your music."

Emily's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Sure."

At 21:00 hours that evening, Emily sat alone in her quarters, lovingly fingering a beautiful, new Buffet R13 clarinet. The guys had helped her out with the replicator, then headed off to Sandrine's for their own relaxation time. Emily carefully fitted the reed to the mouthpiece, and blew a few experimental notes. The familiar sound vibrations shivered through her body like sips of wine. She skipped to the replicator, willing to give up her coffee for days if she could just— "Computer, could I have a copy of the Brahms _Sonate in f minor_?"

The replicator's familiar beep sounded, and the music appeared in front of her. Unwilling to spend more replicator rations on a music stand, Emily tacked the music to the wall. She lifted the instrument again, then paused. "Computer, is it possible to soundproof this room?"

"Affirmative."

"Do it please."

Feeling a joy she hadn't even been fully aware was missing wash over her, Emily raised her new clarinet to her lips and began to play.


	13. Future's Past

Author's Note: _It's time to credit an amazing website without which I would have given up on this long ago. Janet's Star Trek: Voyager website at_ www.star-trek-voyager.fsnet.co.uk/index.htm#nav _is an treasure!_

Disclaimer: _If you haven't figured out the copyright info by chapter 13, you have a problem! *grin*_

Future's Past

"He's really not going to appreciate this, guys," Emily said breathlessly between uncontrollable giggles as she surveyed the two-dimensional holoimage of the Doctor on the screen before them. Whiskers and delicately pointed cat's ears contrasted ludicrously with his stern, precise expression.

John Robertson grinned. "Well, I didn't appreciate the spots, either. I know for certain I'm not allergic to the normal Arethian flu treatment. I had it when I was a kid. He gave me the alternate one out of pure spite."

"Besides, we have to use this now," Andrew Hogan said, chuckling. "It took me all morning to write the program."

"Then by all means, go ahead," Emily said, shaking her head in mock resignation. "Just remember that I warned you the next time someone activates him, and he goes on a witch hunt that ends with you both being strung up by the toes from the highest branch of that oak tree in his golf program."

Andrew snorted. "There's no way he'll find out who did it. I've secured it within an inch of its life. Computer activate prog…" his last word trailed off as the ship rocked violently.

Emily grabbed John's shoulder to keep herself upright. "Oh Jesus, what _now_!?" she exclaimed irritably. 

John chuckled as he grabbed her arm to steady her. "You're becoming a veteran already, Em," he said lightly.

Andrew pulled away from the console, which he had crashed into, rubbing his elbow. "He's right, you know," he said. "That was hardly the response of an untrained civilian."

Emily managed a smile. "Four months on Voyager is enough to make a veteran out of a toddler."

"True that. I wonder what's—" Again the end of Andrew's sentence was cut off, this time by a deafening crash. The ship pitched and shook even more violently. The lights dimmed, and the alarm bell sounded.

"Red Alert! Let's go!" John yelled, picking himself off the floor and heading out the door. 

Andrew and Emily followed him. "Watch yourselves," Emily called to the two ensigns, as they parted ways. They nodded and grinned, and Hogan flashed her a thumbs-up. Emily grinned back and turned her steps, not toward her quarters this time, but towards Sickbay. _There might be something useful I can do there, if this is serious,_ she thought. _Better than cowering in my quarters like an idiot, anyway._

*           *          *

"We've got to go down there." The Captain's voice was clear and firm. "If this subspace signal is Captain Braxton, he's the key to all this, and at the moment his ship is the only way we have of getting back to our own century." She nodded to both Tuvok and Chakotay, who took that as the order it was and rose quickly to their feet. Then she turned quickly to her helmsman. "Mr. Paris, as I recall, you're something of an aficionado on 20th century America. What will we need to pass as locals in this era?" 

Even now, Tom grinned insouciantly. "Simple," he said quickly. "Nice clothes, fast car and lots of money."

A brief smile flickered through Captain Janeway's tense expression. "No offence, Mr. Paris," she said, "but I think we need a more expert opinion."

*          *          *

"Let me tell you, I do _not_ appreciate this sort of practical joke in the _slightest_!" The Doctor's face was twisted with an annoyance that made the whiskers and ears adorning his features even more hilarious. Kes and Emily traded sidelong glances and tried to stifle their giggles. 

Whatever had been shaking the ship had stopped, and everything was ominously still. Of course, no one had bothered to contact Sickbay to inform the Doctor of the situation, so they didn't know whether the crisis was over, or whether to be prepared for casualties from onboard combat. Emily had to admit that the ship wide assumption that Sickbay would always be prepared to handle anything from a nosebleed to severe combat casualties with no notice beforehand was beginning to irritate even her. For the Doctor, however, this cavalier treatment, added to the tail, ears and whiskers he had discovered when Kes activated him, equaled a full-blown tirade. 

"Not only do I have to be prepared for everything from an attack by the Kazon to an invasion of Vidiians because no one has the courtesy to keep me informed of the ship's status," the Doctor fumed, "but some practical joker decides to rewrite my matrix for his own personal amusement! I wish I knew which crewman aboard this ship thinks I am nothing more than a recreational hologram designed to do nothing more than entertain the crew in their spare moments. It would serve him right if there _were _a crisis, and he were injured and I was unable to help him because I tripped over this – this ridiculous – _thing_!" Here the Doctor held up a tail nearly twice as long as he was tall, with an injured expression that convulsed his two listeners. "Oh yes, go ahead and laugh," he grumbled. "It's so very funny to pick on the Doctor. He has no feelings. He's just a hologram. He's just the _only qualified medical expert in the quadrant_! He's just—"

"Bridge to Anderson." The Captain's crisp voice issuing from Emily's com badge cut through the Doctor's tirade.

Tapping the com badge in response was reflexive by now, and Emily did so with a sigh of relief. "Anderson here." She tried to make her voice as crisp and professional as Captain Janeway's. 

"Please come to the Bridge, Miss Anderson."

_What?_ "Um – on my way, Captain."

"Thank you. Bridge out."

Emily straightened her clothing and flashed an apologetic smile at the Doctor and Kes. "If I find out what's going on, I'll try and let you know," she told the irate hologram.

The offer earned her a tight nod of thanks. "I would appreciate that." The Doctor's words were only slightly sarcastic.

The doors swooshed open, and Emily left Sickbay. Only when she was on the turbolift headed for the bridge did it occur to her to be apprehensive. What on earth could the Captain want with her? 

The first thing she noticed when she stepped off the turbolift was the palpable feeling of controlled anxiety in the air. The second thing she noticed was the picture of Earth that filled the main viewscreen. "Captain?" she said quietly.

Janeway turned toward her. She and Chakotay, Tuvok and Paris stood in a cluster near the tactical station. Ensign Kim stood alone by the command chairs. "Emily, good," the Captain said swiftly. "We seem to have been pulled by a temporal rift into a time period you are very familiar with."

Emily shook her head. _I don't get it. _"Captain?"

"A 29th Century Federation ship appeared through a temporal rift and tried to destroy Voyager." the Captain summarized hurriedly, but concisely. "The captain of the vessel seemed convinced that Voyager will somehow cause an explosion that destroys Earth's solar system in his century." Emily gulped. Janeway shook her head irritably. "But he didn't offer me any proof, and I really don't see how he expected me to allow him to destroy this ship based on a ten second conversation. We fought back. The high energy polaron pulse we used to deflect his weapon destabilized his control of the temporal rift. He was pulled back through it, and we were right behind him."

"I—see. Um, where do I come in, Captain?"

Chakotay's face crinkled in sympathy with Emily's bewildered expression. "Our information indicates that we're now in orbit around Earth, in the year 1996," he said gently.

Emily's head spun, and for a second the Bridge and its occupants swam hazily in and out of view. Her throat closed, and she tried to gasp for breath without being too obvious about it. "Now I get it," she said, softly so the sudden lump in her throat wouldn't cause her to croak. "But—what do you need from me?"

"If you feel capable of it, I would like you to come with us on an away mission to Earth. We've detected subspace emissions from the Los Angeles area, and we suspect that they originate from Captain Braxton's ship. That ship is our only way of returning to our proper place in the timeline. Since you are familiar with this time period, I'm hoping you can help us all to pass as natives."

Emily nodded. "I'll do my best," she said quickly, trying furiously to remember if she'd seen an episode like this on TV. All she could come up with was a vague memory of  seeing the beginning of an episode where a ship from the future tried to destroy Voyager, before a crowd of her roommate's friends had come in and made so much noise that Emily had turned off the TV and escaped to the bookstore out at the mall for the evening. _I would have to have missed a really important episode,_ she thought, trying to hold onto the irritation in order to crowd out the fear welling in her chest. How on earth was she going to be of any help at all in an away mission?

"How are you with a phaser, Emily?" Commander Chakotay asked as they outfitted themselves and prepared to transport off the ship. "I know you've taken some holodeck training."

Emily shrugged, ignoring the pounding of her heart. This was all happening way too fast. "I know which end to point at the enemy," she said lightly. "I can aim and fire if I have a straight shot. I know how to use all the settings of a standard issue."

Voyager's Executive Officer nodded, apparently pleased. "Then you're probably safer with one than without it," he said, tossing one to her. 

Emily caught it and tucked the weapon into the pocket of her jeans. _LA in 1996,_ she thought dazedly. _I would have been eleven. I wonder if there's an analogue of me running around somewhere down there in this dimension…_The thought made her shudder, and she was glad when the Captain's order, "Energize," cut off her train of thought before she could well and truly scare herself.

*          *         *

"We could have worn our Starfleet uniforms. I doubt if anyone would've noticed."

Emily clamped her jaw firmly shut on the bubble of semi-hysterical laughter that threatened to burst from her at Tuvok's deadpan observation. This was just _weird_. Everything was exactly right. The smell of salt water mixed with smog and car exhaust. The steady roar of the surf, and the roar of traffic under that. The clothes, the people, the hubbub of the beach below them – people shouting to each other, whistling, laughing. It was all right. It was all exactly as it should be. She was home.

And yet, it was all wrong. Emily gripped the railing they leaned against more tightly as a wave of dizziness and disorientation almost made her knees give out. She was not one of them; those people down on the beach. The noise of boom boxes and careless chatter grated on her ears after the quiet of Voyager. The people's undisciplined behavior and carelessness with one another caught her off guard now that she was used to the gentler, more thoughtful way in which the Starfleet crew interacted. Emily shook her head, still dizzy. She was the same as the people who populated the beach below her. And yet here she was standing with Captain Janeway and her away team; aliens from another time, trying to get back into the future. With a little pang of an emotion that was close to despair, Emily realized that she belonged now neither to the past nor to the future.

"The subspace readings are coming from within a hundred meter radius of our position," Janeway noted quietly, surreptitiously employing her tricorder to their surroundings. "We'll split into two groups to trace it. Mr. Tuvok, Mr. Paris, check the shoreline. Chakotay and I will search the Boardwalk. Emily, you'll come with the Commander and I. Try to keep us from committing any 20th century _faux pas_, since our aficionado of this time period is going with Lieutenant Tuvok."

"Yes, Captain," Emily said soberly, choking back another untimely shriek of laughter at the incongruity of the Captain's crisp orders and the casual beach scene below them. _Are we even real?_ she wondered. _Any of us? Or maybe we're on the holodeck and none of _them_ are really there._

"Well, Kathryn, you got us home," Chakotay said softly as Paris and Tuvok headed to the beach and the Captain and Commander turned down the Boardwalk. Emily followed a few paces behind.

"Right place, wrong time," the Captain answered. "But it is good to be back." Her eyes bright; perhaps with unshed tears.

"Or in my case, right time, wrong dimension," Emily put in, then wished she'd held her tongue as both officers stopped and turned to look at her.

The Captain held out her hand, gesturing for Emily to catch up and walk between them. "Are you all right?" she asked softly, resting her hand briefly on Emily's shoulder.

Emily nodded. "I think so, Captain," she said, her voice catching oddly in her throat. "This is just _weird_, is all."

Chakotay smiled his understanding smile, and Janeway chuckled and squeezed her shoulder before letting it go. "Yes," she replied, looking around carefully, "it certainly is."

The realization that the situation was nearly as strange for Voyager's command team as it was for her relaxed Emily a little. She took a deep breath of the salt and exhaust-laden air and let herself enjoy the scene without analyzing it. The Captain and Chakotay's quiet conversation washed over her in a similar fashion. They discussed the Hermosa quake of 2047 that sank the whole Los Angeles region 200 meters under water, eventually creating one of the largest coral reefs in the world. Emily shook her head, remembering her sense of shock on reading that in a history padd two months ago. It was one thing to joke about California ending up in the ocean. It was quite another to find out that it actually happened. _Or maybe the proper expression at the moment is 'actually happens'…_Emily tuned back into the two older officers' conversation in time to learn that one of Chakotay's ancestors was a schoolteacher in Arizona, her home state. She smiled, trying to imagine if she could have met the person.

Janeway's tricorder suddenly beeped softly. All three of them started, and Chakotay turned to stare at an old man wandering through the city park they had entered, all his possessions piled into an old grocery cart. Chakotay's smile was puzzled. "That's the source of the low-frequency subspace emissions?" he queried dryly, looking to Janeway for confirmation. The Captain tapped at her tricorder, and Emily and Chakotay watched as the tattered man stopped and tacked a sign reading, 'Future's End!" to a telephone pole. He was muttering incoherently to himself under his breath.

"Yes, that's the source of the emissions," Janeway said softly, as Paris and Tuvok trotted towards them.

"The bum?" Tom asked, grinning. He had taken off his button shirt, and wore only jeans and a white tank top. Of the five of them, Emily thought, she and Tom looked the most like they belonged in this world. Maybe that was just because they had both had so much trouble fitting in onboard Voyager.

"Voyager to Janeway." Ensign Kim's voice floated from the Captain's com badge.

Janeway tapped it. "Go ahead." 

Kim reported the disturbing news that Voyager had been detected, and someone on Earth had sent out the standard STETI greeting. The members of the away team looked at each other grimly. "We've tracked the SETI transmission to Griffith Observatory, about 20 kilometers from your location," Kim continued. "We can't transport you there because it would mean going into a lower orbit, and we might be spotted again. The transporters will take a couple of days to reroute to make transporting from this distance feasible."

Janeway nodded. "All right. Good work, Mr. Kim. Just transmit the co-ordinates to Mr. Tuvok's tricorder. Paris and Tuvok will have to get to Griffith Observatory using more conventional means."

Tuvok was busy reading the coordinates. Chakotay was keeping an eye on the bum. Janeway was concentrating on further orders to Ensign Kim in command of Voyager. Only Emily saw the sparkle in Tom's eye, and the mischievous grin at the Captain's mention of 'more conventional means'. Emily rolled her eyes. _Ten to one Paris is going to find some reason to hot-wire a fast car,_ she thought with amusement.

"Mr. Tuvok, Mr. Paris, good luck. Chakotay, Emily, let's go have a chat with the—" Janeway stopped, searching for a word.

"Bum?" Emily suggested, borrowing a mischievous grin from Tom. "Hobo? Homeless man?"

Only the barest twitch at the corner of the Captain's mouth betrayed her amusement.                           

"Who the hell are you?" the bum growled as soon as it became obvious they were approaching him in his little corner. "This is all my stuff." 

"It's all right," Janeway said quickly. "We don't want your stuff. We just want to ask you a few questions."

"No, no, no!" The man yelled. "No more questions, no. No more surveys. Damn social workers coming round all the time! No, I don't need your advice, I don't need your—" he broke off, staring for a long moment at Janeway's face. "Voyager!" he hissed finally. "I knew you'd show up. This is all your fault! This is all your doing!" 

Janeway gasped, her eyes widening with surprise and no little dismay. "Captain Braxton!"

_Not a bum after all,_ Emily thought, studying the tattered old man with the matted beard more closely. _The captain of the ship that tried to destroy us. That explains the subspace emissions. But what _happened_ to him?_

"I told you to turn off your deflector pulse but you wouldn't listen to me!" the man was shouting, sounding, Emily was sure, very much like the crazy old man he appeared to be. People passing by gave them one curious look, then hurried on with their faces averted lest the old bum pick them as the targets for his next meaningless harangue. "Voyager! Fools!" the man spat.

"Captain, what happened to you?" Janeway demanded, echoing Emily's thoughts. "The last time we saw you—"

"I was a younger man, confident in my mission," the old man finished for her. "But you wouldn't listen to me, no, you were too concerned with yourselves." 

"You were trying to destroy us," Chakotay protested. 

"I was _trying_ to save billions of lives! To stop a chain reaction that started with Voyager! Too late now. Oh, all things are set in motion. The temporal explosion will occur. The end is coming, the future's end." 

Emily shivered at the dementia in the former Starfleet captain's voice. _Is that what will happen to me if I have to live too long in a time period I don't belong to?_ she wondered. _Maybe that's what that dream I keep having is trying to tell me._                                   

Once again unconsciously echoing her young _de facto_ crewmember's thoughts, Janeway asked, "Captain, how long have you been here, in the 20th century?" 

"Oh, too long," Braxton replied. "30 years too long." 

"And yet we just arrived," Chakotay said, frowning. "Why?" 

Braxton shrugged. "Pure chance. And when you knocked my navigation system off course there's no telling _where_ we would've ended up. Who's been here?" he demanded, his voice changing to a childlike demand. "Who took my pencils? Oh, oh, always trying to steal things… Primitive people… Post-industrial barbarians!" 

"Captain," Janeway tried to redirect his wandering attention. "We want to help you, but you've got to give us more information. You said that Voyager causes the explosion." 

Braxton looked back at her, the intelligence in his eyes belying his earlier disconnected mutterings. "Yes," he said. "No. And yes. That's the paradox, my dear. A leads to B, leads to C, leads to A. Eh!" he groaned.  "Juvenile minds. Oh, how can I make you understand, huh?" 

He stopped, took a deep breath, then started again. "A: There's an explosion in the 29th century. Debris from Voyager's hull is found in evidence. I go back in time to destroy you. B: You try to stop me, disabling my weapon which causes me to crash land here back in the 20th century. C: Someone in this century steals my timeship and launches it. They go into the future and once there they make one critical mistake, which causes a temporal explosion and takes us all the way back to A: There's an explosion in the 29th century. The cycle of causality is complete." 

Emily shivered.

"How do you know all this?" Janeway demanded. "What evidence do you have that it will be your timeship that causes the disaster?"

"Ah, I spent 30 years answering that very question," Braxton said, his aspect changing again to that of a mentally unstable homeless man as he rummaged around among the junk he'd collected. Finally he produced a large, worn, and battered chart. "Oh yes," he said, almost seeming to relish this chance to declaim to his captive audience. "When the explosion first happened, my sensors recorded a whole variety of chronometric data. The pulses were highly chaotic. At first I thought it was a warp core implosion, but then I found debris from Voyager. My theory seemed confirmed. It was you. But then someone here stole my timeship, and it started to dawn on me – if someone were to launch the ship without recalibrating the temporal matrix, that would cause the type of explosion that I witnessed in the 29th century." 

Janeway did not look pleased at this assessment. "So it wasn't really Voyager after all." 

Braxton shook his head violently. "No. No, no, I reconstructed all the chronometric data as best I could remember it and it proved that I was right. My ship causes the catastrophe."

"Which raises the question: who has your timeship?" Chakotay's voice was grim. 

"Starling," Braxton said immediately. "Henry Starling, CEO of Chronowerx Industries, philanthropist, entrepreneur, outstanding citizen…Ha! When I crashed in 1967 I made an emergency beam out, but he found my timeship before I did, in some remote mountain range. I've been following this corrupt little man ever since—tracking his movements—but he's become powerful…can't get close to him. Of course you can't accomplish anything in this wretched century. Nobody here listens. Do you know that once they put me in a mental institution and filled me with primitive pharmaceuticals?"

That didn't surprise Emily a bit. The thought of what this man must have endured made her a little sick.

"Maybe we can help you find Starling and your ship and get us back to where we belong," Chakotay suggested.

"Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you," Braxton warned, the paranoia in his voice increasing. 

"Why not?" Janeway inquired. 

"Haven't you been listening?" the old man demanded exasperatedly. "A leads to B—" 

"—Leads to C, yes we heard you," Janeway finished with a little exasperation of her own. "Why shouldn't we try to stop Starling?" 

"Because somehow you're involved in the disaster. That's why I found debris from Voyager's hull at the explosion. You will be destroyed as well." 

"Now that we know what's going to happen maybe we could figure out—" Janeway's suggestion was cut off by the blaring siren of the police car that pulled up alongside them. The three Voyager officers turned, startled and a bit apprehensive, but the cop who stepped out of the car ignored them. 

The policeman moved at once toward Captain Braxton, alluding to the fact that he had been putting up posters again, and inviting him casually to the police station downtown. It was obviously a conversation the policeman had had a number of times before with this particular loony homeless man. Braxton was having none of it. He fled, his long, tattered trench coat flying out behind him. The policeman rolled his eyes and took off after him. The last the three Voyagers heard was Braxton's indignant, frightened yell, "You quasi-Cardassian totalitarian!"

Janeway, her eyes troubled, turned to her first officer. "We have to find Starling." Chakotay nodded briefly, and without additional words, the two officers turned and walked away. Emily trailed along behind, wondering if they even remembered she was there.


	14. Stone Knives

Author's Note: _Well, here is chapter 15. Future's End is taking me a little longer than I'd thought, but it's important because it's Emily's first "field experience," so to speak. No, I am not going to do all the episodes in this kind of excruciating detail, only the ones that matter in Emily's development aboard Voyager, or the ones that she alters significantly by her presence._

Disclaimer: _This is the part where I ask you not to sue me for using a world and characters that don't belong to me. Please don't._

Stone Knives

"Our Mr. Starling has built himself quite a corporate empire, looks like he's got wealth, celebrity, and an ego to match." Janeway's comment hung in the still, dim air of Henry Starling's massive office. 

As the two Starfleet officers moved quickly to the computer on Starling's desk, Emily hung back, staring around the room at the awards and trophies lining the walls and desks, including a photograph of Starling shaking hands with President Nixon. Emily suppressed a groan of revulsion. She had to agree with Janeway's assessment of the CEO's character, and this filled her with a vague dread. As they hung over the ancient computer, Chakotay and the Captain seemed so careless that Emily wondered if they really understood what a powerful man like Starling could do if—no scratch that, _when_—he found them breaking into his office. They seemed confident in their technological superiority, but the way Emily saw it, a phaser wouldn't do you a lot of good if an old-fashioned bullet got to you before you had time to draw it.

"I see you never learned to type," Chakotay mentioned with amusement, drawing Emily's attention away from her anxiety.

"Turn of the millennium technology wasn't a required course at the Academy." Janeway's tone of voice was acerbic. "This is like stone knives and bearskins."

"Do you think I could be of assistance, Captain?" Emily asked quietly, moving to stand by the two officers. They started as if they had forgotten she was there. "I can type."

The Captain had the grace to look a bit sheepish as she relinquished her chair. "Go ahead."

Suddenly afraid she wouldn't know what to do, Emily sat down in front of the computer. Janeway had bypassed the automatic reboot, and was reprogramming the startup sequence. Emily was a little startled to find that she understood exactly what to do to get the information they needed. _Those algorithms,_ she thought, typing furiously. _Bless Harry Kim!_

The computer stalled. Emily looked up apologetically. "There's an encryption sequence," she said. "This could take all day."

"Here, let me," Janeway said quietly. Emily stood and moved over and the Captain used her tricorder to bypass the encryption sequence. "There," she said with some satisfaction, gesturing Emily back into the typing chair. "Let's see what Henry's been up to all these years."

The data was fascinating. _But if I'm reading this right—_ "Does this mean that the computer age of the late 20th century shouldn't have happened at all?" Emily asked finally. 

Janeway nodded. "It looks like it only occurred because Starling based Chronowerx's innovative technology on Braxton's timeship, Aeon," she said. "Look, for instance. Starling 'invented' the very first isograded circuit in 1969, only two years after Braxton crash-landed." 

"In a way, then, Braxton was right," Chakotay said. "If it weren't for the events we've instigated, none of this might have happened."

Janeway groaned. "Time travel. Since my first day as a starship captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes. The future is the past, the past is the future—it all gives me a headache."

Emily rather unsuccessfully stifled a giggle as she turned back to the computer screen. Chakotay patted his captain on the arm in a commiserating gesture before turning to scan the office with his tricorder. It beeped. "I'm detecting a force field," he said. "I can't scan beyond that wall over there." 

Janeway glanced at him and frowned thoughtfully before tapping her com badge. "Janeway to Voyager."

Kim's voice responded. "Voyager here."

"Mr. Kim, I want you to upload Starling's database here onto Voyager's computer."

There was a pause, then Harry responded, "Looks like we're going to need a few minutes to reconfigure Voyager's computer to their binary system, Captain."

Janeway nodded. "As quickly as you can, Mr. Kim. Let me know when you're ready."

"Yes, Captain."

The computer grunted reluctantly as Emily typed in another command (_I think I prefer the beeping on Voyager,_ she thought amusedly), and another window appeared on the screen. It held graphic designs for some kind of machinery, and Emily was about to move on when she saw schematics for something that looked very like a small starship. "Captain! Look—"

Janeway's attention snapped back to the screen. "Gantries and launch paraphernalia," she murmured grimly. "It looks like Starling does indeed intend to launch the timeship. Excuse me, Miss Anderson, I think I see how—"

Emily moved, and Janeway painstakingly typed in a command string. A dialog box reading, 'Force field disabled' popped onto the screen. Janeway and Chakotay turned toward the far wall. Braxton's timeship was there. Only Emily saw the second dialog box pop onto the screen: 'Security code activated.'

"Um…Captain?" she said hesitantly. Then, at the sound of an old-fashioned door latch opening, her instincts took over and she slid under the desk, pulling the rolling chair toward her to block herself from the view of the two pairs of legs striding in the door.

"I know who you are!" a low, ringing, male voice said authoritatively, and there was a sharp movement as Janeway and Chakotay turned quickly. "You're from the future. I knew you'd come back one day. I detected your vessel in orbit, and Mr. Dunbar here had a run-in with your friends. You're here to take the timeship."

Emily controlled a shiver. _I hope Tom and Tuvok had better luck than it looks like we're having._

"Mr. Starling," the Captain stated in her most reasonable voice, "you're about to cause a terrible disaster that will affect the 29th century. An explosion that will cost billions of lives. We're here to stop you from doing that." 

"What are you talking about?" the man demanded.

"If you launch that ship and travel to the future, it will destroy Earth's solar system." Janeway told him.

_Why are they telling him about the future?_ Emily thought. _Why don't they just stun them both and get us out of here?_ She could only think of one answer to that question. _One of those two guys must be holding a gun on them._

"How do you know this?" Starling's voice grated.

"Well, let's just say, we've talked to the ship's previous owner," the Captain told him. "He told us that if its temporal matrix isn't precisely calibrated you'll trigger a temporal explosion. That ship shouldn't be here. It belongs to another century. We have to take it back."

"Kim to Janeway," Harry's voice issued from Janeway's com badge. "We're ready to carry out the tricorder uplink."

"Proceed, Mr. Kim," Janeway said quickly. 

"What—hey!" Starling apparently realized very quickly that they were downloading his database. The white-trousered pair of legs moved out of Emily's line of sight in two large strides. There was the sound of ripping fabric. Then Starling yelled, "Stop, or I'll kill your captain!" 

_One of them _must_ have a gun,_ Emily decided. _And it doesn't seem to be Starling. My bet says Dunbar is his hit man._ __

"Who is this?" Ensign Kim's indignant voice drifted through the small piece of metal. 

Emily began the agonizingly slow process of surreptitiously moving her right hand toward the pocket of her jeans that held her phaser. _If I took a potshot at Dunbar's leg, maybe that would give one of them time to draw their phaser,_ she thought. _Of course, it could also cause Dunbar to pull the trigger, in which case the Captain or Chakotay could be killed. I wish I had more _training_!_

"You've got five seconds," Starling snarled into the com badge.

_Harry, he's not bluffing,_ Emily thought anxiously, moving her hand another inch toward her pocket. _He means every word of it. Captain Janeway's not even a person to him, she's an apparition from the future. He doesn't care…_

Kim's voice, muffled, said, "Break the link." 

"Done," Lieutenant Torres' voice came through faintly but crisply.

"You see?" Starling said triumphantly. "You can do nothing here."

Emily desperately moved her hand another inch.

"You think so, Mr. Starling?" Janeway said coolly. "I have a starship in orbit that could vaporize this entire building in the blink of an eye."

"And you along with it," Starling countered.

"If necessary." The Captain's voice was like ice.

At that point, several things happened at once. Emily drew her phaser and fired at the pair of dark-trousered legs in her line of vision. The owner of the legs cried out in pain as the stunning blast of the phaser hit him in the knee, then cried out again as a chair flew at him and knocked him over. Starling let out a very different cry – one of outrage. "Kill them!"

Then there was an almost eerie moment of absolute silence. 

_What the hell…?_

"You goddamned idiot!" Starling's voice shattered the stillness. "You let them escape! I told you to kill them!"

"Sorry boss," Dunbar said sullenly, as the dark-trousered legs pushed their owner upright rather clumsily. "One of them fired at me out of nowhere." He staggered, and Starling's legs came back into view to hold him upright. "Hit me in the knee."

"If you'd obeyed my orders when I gave them, neither of them would have had time to fire."

"I was hit before you said anything, boss!" Dunbar protested. "Came out of nowhere just when the Captain disappeared!"

_Disappeared…But then…_Starling's argument with his underling ceased to make sense to Emily as the truth of what had happened dawned on her. Harry had somehow performed the impossible and beamed the Captain and Chakotay out of the office. Her first thought was one of deep relief. _Oh, thank God. Thank God. They're safe…but…_Her gratitude lessened as she realized that though Janeway and Chakotay were gone, _she_ was still there, hiding under the desk. _Why didn't they…?_ She left the rest of the thought unformed. There was only one answer to that question, as well. 

_They forgot about me._

*                  *                     * 

"Mr. Kim,"  Janeway said, relief suffusing her crisp, clear voice as Voyager's command team rematerialized on the Bridge, "Your timing is impeccable. Not bad for your first day in the big chair."

"Where's Emily?" Chakotay asked, looking around anxiously.

The Captain gave the room a sharp once-over, then returned her gaze to Ensign Kim, whose horror-struck countenance said what he couldn't seem to find the words to say.

It was B'Elanna who broke the stunned, tense instant of silence. "We forgot she was with you, Captain." 

"Get her out of there. Now." Janeway's order was terse.

Kim and Torres turned immediately to their consoles. After a few seconds of feverish work, Kim cried, "Captain, he's using our transporter beam as a downlink to download Voyager's data files!"

"Stop him!" the Captain ordered. "Get Emily and break the link."

"We're trying," B'Elanna growled. "Every attempt I make, he counters. Dammit!"

"He's using 29th century technology against us," Janeway said tensely. "Just as fast as he can learn what we can do."

In confirmation of her remark, Henry Starling's voice echoed over Voyager's com system. "It says here that the USS Voyager was first launched in 2371," Starling told them mockingly. "This would seem to give me the home field advantage, wouldn't it, Captain? You'll never get the timeship out of here now!"

"That's enough," the Captain barked. "Terminate the link."

B'Elanna did so, abruptly cutting off Starling's boasting.

"He thinks we were after the timeship," Janeway said. "He must not know Emily's in the room with him."

"But how could she—" Chakotay's protest was cut off  as a new voice floated through the com. 

"Kes to the Bridge."

Janeway automatically responded, "Bridge here."

"Captain," said the Occampan's worried voice,  "the Doctor's program has completely disappeared from our database."

Before anyone had time to do more than look at one another in stunned disbelief, another voice piped up. "Neelix to the Bridge."

"Yes, what is it Neelix?" Janeway's voice was harsh with tension.

"I've been watching Earth's media broadcasts here in the briefing room, as you told me to, Captain, and I think there's something you should see."

"Put it on the main viewscreen," the Captain ordered. 

The stars rushing by on the huge bridge viewscreen were replaced by grainy amateur video footage of a huge spaceship's flight through the hazy Los Angeles sky. A national broadcaster announced that this video footage was taken by a La Canada resident during a garden barbecue. Voyager was being reported as a UFO!

"What about Emily?" cried Ensign Kim, his young voice cracking.

*                    *                     *

Emily fiercely tried to blink back the tears that spilled down her cheeks, but it was useless. Henry Starling was bent over his computer, typing furiously. Emily huddled back as far as she could under the desk, her phaser ready in her shaking hands, sure that any minute now, Starling would sit down in the chair and discover her presence.

She winced as he banged his fist on the desk above her head. "It says here that the USS Voyager was first launched in 2371," he yelled mockingly. "This would seem to give me the home field advantage, wouldn't it, Captain? You'll never get the timeship out of here now!"

Startled, Emily shook the tears from her vision. Maybe they were trying to rescue her! But a second later, she heard the Captain's voice, sounding weary and thin through the com link. "That's enough. Terminate the link." A second later, Starling banged his fist even harder against the desk and yelled, "Dammit!"

Everything was quiet for a moment, except for a furious tapping on the keyboard above Emily's head. Suddenly Starling shifted his weight abruptly, standing up. "Welcome," he said, his voice floating over the top of the desk to somewhere behind Emily. Then he added sharply, "Wait, what the hell are you?"

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," responded a precise, cool, faintly puzzled and altogether familiar voice.

"Oh so I _have_ managed to acquire Voyager's EMH," Starling said, sounding pleased. "I was confused at first by your—appearance."

"Oh, that," the shrug in the Doctor's voice was audible. "Some inconsiderate crewman's idea of a joke. I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, sir. Who are you?"

"Henry Starling, corporate executive officer of Chronowerx, year 1996."

"I see." The Doctor did not sound pleased at all to hear this. "And how is it that I am able to materialize here?"

"I use a holographic simulator to test new microchip designs," Starling responded coolly. "The holograms are projected through the emitters in this office. Now," he went on, and Emily watched his white-trousered legs move briskly out of her line of vision toward the Doctor, "I want you to provide me with Janeway's psychological profile. So that I can— What is the phrase, 'know thy enemy?'"

"I'm a doctor, not a database," the Doctor responded arrogantly, as Starling's legs made their way back to the computer. "And, I might add, you have no way of coercing me, since I am a hologram and feel no—"

Emily heard the tap of a command on his keyboard above her head, followed by a harsh, guttural cry of from the Doctor that cut off his words. Emily stared feverishly at Starling's legs, desperate to know what was happening. How could you torture a hologram?

Starling tapped the computer keyboard again, then said calmly, "For a real person to feel that much pain, they have to be on fire." 

There was a series of thumps unpleasantly reminiscent of a body collapsing to the floor. Then the Doctor's voice demanded weakly, "How?"

"By reconfiguring your tactile response sensors," was the cool response, and he tapped the keyboard again.

Emily clenched her hands so tightly around her phaser that they felt immobile. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she choked silently on the sobs that threatened to break free. She _had_ to do something! She couldn't let this horrible idiot torture their doctor! But what? What the _hell_ could she do? Visions of herself springing from under the desk and stunning Starling with one well-aimed shot from her phaser flew through her head, but the practical part of her warned that she was more likely to hit her head on the desk top, trip over the chair that was in her way, and be grabbed and disarmed by Starling before she could do anything of the kind. And just because she couldn't see Dunbar didn't mean he wasn't in the room, gun in hand.

Seconds ticked by in a terrible agony of silence. Emily cursed herself for the cowardice that kept her there, immobile. Finally, the Doctor's voice called out weakly, "Stop—my god—stop!"

You couldn't kill a hologram, could you? Or knock him out. He'd just go on suffering and suffering, until finally he broke. She couldn't stand it. The worst Starling could do to her was nothing compared to what he could do to the Doctor. At least, eventually, she would die.

With the lightening speed her holodeck coach had told her was necessary for a surprise attack, Emily shoved the chair out of her way, barking Starling as hard as she could in the shins. As he yelled in pain, she dove out from under the desk and scrambled to her feet. He turned swiftly, reaching for a desk drawer, but she had her phaser trained on him before he could do more. "Yes, stop," she said, meeting his eyes steadily. Funny, her hands weren't trembling at all now.

Starling stared at her, plainly too surprised for the moment to react. Emily felt a small half smile flit across her face. She may not have much combat training, but he had even less. Feeling like the heroine in a really bad western, Emily gestured at him with her phaser. "Release the Doctor," she said flatly. "And don't do anything else with the computer. You've got two seconds to release him and turn back around to face me with your hands in front of you. One—"

Starling turned around, quickly taping a command into the machine. A groan of relief from the other side of the desk told Emily her fellow crewmember was free. "Two," she said loudly, preparing to pull the trigger. As if sensing her intent, Starling lifted his hands and turned around sullenly.

_Now what the hell do I do?_ Emily wondered frantically, as she held the phaser steady and met Starling's angry eyes with what she hoped was an implacable and unreadable expression. _TV never shows the moment _after_ the heroic rescue!_ "Where's your friend Dunbar?" she asked, stalling for a little time to think.

"Right outside the door," Starling said harshly, and a little too quickly. "I just sent him out on a short errand. He'll be back in a minute or less. You'd better stop playacting and hand that toy to me, little girl, unless you want to die in the next few minutes."

"Somehow I don't think you're telling the truth, _Starling_." The Doctor's voice was harsh, as if his throat was swollen or constricted. Emily glanced swiftly over at him, leaning heavily on the desk behind Starling, and suppressed both an hysterical shriek of laughter at his drooping ears and whiskers, and a tearing, aching pity that welled up in her at the haunted look in his eyes. She forced her gaze quickly back to Starling's cold, blue eyes. Starling remained stubbornly silent, a slight sneer twisting his mouth.

"Doctor, do you have a weapon?" she asked.

"Of course not," he responded irritably. "I don't _normally_ need one within my line of duty."

"I believe you'll find one in Mr. Starling's desk," Emily told him pleasantly, enjoying Starling's start of surprise. "Second drawer on the left."

The Doctor nodded curtly and shuffled around the desk in a painful parody of his normal, quick stride. Sure enough, a 29th century phaser resided in the desk drawer, and the Doctor pulled it out slowly. "Keep an eye on the door, please, Doctor?" Emily said quietly. "In case his story about Dunbar isn't so farfetched?" 

Starling snorted again, but the Doctor nodded, and started to close the desk drawer and turn around. He stopped abruptly, however, and turned quickly back to the half-closed drawer, jerking it open again.

"What is it, Doctor?" Emily asked tensely.

The Doctor pulled out a small, flat object, studying it intensely. Emily spared herself a glance at him, keeping Starling carefully in her peripheral vision. Musicians had very good peripheral vision. She had noticed this during her sessions on the holodeck. All that watching the conductor while reading notes. "Doctor, the door," she hissed warningly, but he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention. In fact, he was staring at the tiny black object as if he'd just found the Holy Grail.


	15. Cat and Mouse

Author's Note: _Glad you're still here, faithful readers! Here is the conclusion of the Future's End sequence. It's very long, I know. I hope it's also enjoyable!_

Disclaimer: _Me: A poor student. Paramount et all: The owners of Star Trek. I promise not to break any of these borrowed characters, and to return them unharmed when I'm done with them._

Cat and Mouse

"Doctor, what on earth are you looking at?" Emily demanded rather crossly.

The Doctor started slightly, and turned to her with a dreamy expression on his bewhiskered face. "If this is what I think it is…" he said, more to himself than to his companion, and began tapping buttons rapidly.

"Doctor…" Emily glanced nervously toward the door, then looked back quickly as Starling shifted his weight. The muscles in her arms screamed in protest as she forced herself to keep the phaser aimed and ready. "Stay where you are, Mr. Starling," she said, and added fiercely, "Doctor, would you ever stop playing with your new toy and help me figure out what to do _next_?"

Her voice spiraled up to an anxious squeak at the end of her sentence, and the Doctor glanced up from the small gadget, impatience and exasperation chasing themselves around his face. "Well, I would _assume_, Miss Anderson, that you would want to utilize your com badge, contact Voyager, and inform the Captain that you have custody of Mr. Starling," he said irritably.

Emily felt her face grow hot. Of course she should. How stupid was it possible to _be_? She had forgotten all about the com badge pinned to her turtleneck. The Doctor's face softened as he looked at her. "I forget you have no training, Miss Anderson. I suppose you're doing very well, considering the circumstances. Contacting the ship and letting the Captain take the situation from here would be my recommendation."

Emily gritted her teeth. "Thank you, Doctor." He nodded, his whiskers twitching, and returned his attention to the little device. Emily freed one stiff hand from her phaser and moved it to activate her com badge. "Anderson to Voyager."

*          *           *

"Starling downloaded about 20 per cent of  Voyager's database while we were trying to rescue Miss Anderson," Lieutenant Torres summarized. Janeway nodded gravely and glanced at the tense, sober faces of the senior staff members present. Chakotay gave her a reassuring half-smile. Harry looked miserable. Janeway remembered that he and Tom had formed a friendship with their new young crewmember. She nodded almost imperceptibly at him, and he must have found some reassurance in her face, because his expression cleared a little.

"I've been able to replace most of the crucial files," Torres went on, "but there are some, like the Doctor, that are just gone." 

"We've confirmed Braxton's hypothesis concerning the explosion in the 29th century," Kim took over, "and we've also examined Braxton's schematic. The temporal technology is incredibly complex." 

"However much of a genius Starling might be, he is not a trained pilot from the 29th century," Torres said.

"And without the exact calibration, that ship will rip the space-time continuum apart," Chakotay concluded grimly. 

"The instant he jumps to the 29th century, there won't be a 29th century," Kim said quietly. "Not for Earth anyway. The entire solar system will be destroyed." 

Janeway nodded, feeling a little grim herself. "I want that timeship," she said emphatically.

"Unfortunately, Captain, long-range transporters are still down," Torres said apologetically. "If we want to beam the timeship aboard, we'll will have to drop out of orbit again."

"Captain, I strongly recommend against that," Neelix spoke up from his seat beside an unusually droopy Kes. He played back some of the amateur video footage of Voyager flying through the sky. "For the time being, the more legitimate news organizations have decided that the Voyager image is fraudulent," he commented, "but I have also been monitoring more official channels, and the U.S. military is taking things just a little more seriously."

Chakotay nodded in agreement and turned to the Captain. "If we risk another pass through the lower atmosphere there's a chance of getting intercepted by the Air Force."

"If we can't get to the ship," Janeway said thoughtfully, "maybe we can get to the man."

Chakotay met her eyes, saying slowly, "As far as we know, young Miss Anderson is still in his office. She may be a hostage, or she may still be hiding from him somehow." 

He didn't voice the other logical possibility, and Janeway was a bit relieved that Tuvok wasn't there to say what she knew everyone must be thinking. There was always the possibility that Emily might not be alive.

"Captain, she's in danger. We left her in danger. We have to try to help her." Harry wasn't quite managing to hide the pleading in his voice.

"I have every intention of helping her," Janeway told him. "I just think that the two might go together."

Before she could say more, Harry spun toward a console on the wall behind him. "Captain! We're receiving another transmission from earth!"

Janeway sighed. "Let's hear it, Mr. Kim."

"Captain?" The voice that floated through the audio channel was a welcome one.

"Mr. Tuvok. Good to hear from you. Report."

"Lieutenant Paris and I are at the Griffith Observatory in the Hollywood Hills, Captain. We have, through a series of unfortunate occurrences, become involved with the person who sent Voyager the SETI signal, but her lab is under the supervision of an individual called Henry Starling."

"Oh, we've met Mr. Starling," Janeway told him. "He has the timeship, and he's the one who'll cause the disaster in the 29th century."

"Then it would seem that we must find a way to stop him," Tuvok pointed out, with the Vulcan logic that Janeway knew intellectually wasn't a deliberate attempt to annoy her. Before she could respond, however, another voice floated through the com system.

"Anderson to Voyager?" 

"Miss Anderson! Where are you?"

"I'm still in Chronowerx, Captain. The Doctor is with me. We've got Mr. Starling…" her voice trailed off in search of a word. "In custody?"

Janeway frowned. "How do you mean?"

"She's holding a phaser on him, Captain." The Doctor's voice sounded as if from a distance. He was obviously leaning toward Emily to use her com line.

"Um, right." Emily's voice was a bit strained.

"One moment, Miss Anderson." Janeway motioned Harry to cut the audio. "I don't want Mr. Starling to hear this," she told her officers firmly. "Miss Anderson is in a situation she is not trained for, and I want her out of it as soon as possible."

The others nodded. "I'm just glad the Doctor's there to help her," Chakotay said quietly.

Janeway nodded. "Apparently beaming them aboard from here isn't feasible right now. Our first priority has to be to keep the timeline as uncorrupted as possible. But I think that with a little clever maneuvering, we might be able to get a shuttlecraft within transporter range."

Chakotay grinned suddenly. "That should be possible, Captain."

Janeway felt the corners of her mouth lift slightly. "As quickly as you can, Mr. Chakotay."

He nodded and rose at once. "B'Elanna," he said briefly, and Voyager's Chief Engineer rose too. Both officers left the room with swift, purposeful strides.

Janeway motioned to Harry. "Stand by, Miss Anderson," she said, infusing her voice with as much reassurance as she could."

*             *             *

"Stand by, Miss Anderson," Emily mimicked under her breath, in a tone worthy of the Doctor himself. Apparently in spite of himself, Starling snorted a laugh. Realizing that she'd let her weary arms drop several inches again, Emily hitched the phaser back into position, glaring at the man as the muscles in her arms protested painfully.

The Doctor let out a sudden, triumphant cry. His holographic image seemed to shimmer for an instant before becoming solid again. He grinned and attached the little device to his shoulder.

"Doctor, what _is_ that thing, anyway?" Emily asked, for the third time.

The Doctor smirked at her. "I am now equipped with an autonomous, self-sustaining mobile holo-emitter. In short, I am footloose and fancy-free."

Emily drew in her breath in sudden understanding. "Of course!" she said. "The mobile emitter! Congratulations, Doctor!" Then, as he smirked in an even more annoying manner, she couldn't resist adding, "Ears and whiskers and everything!"

The hologram frowned suddenly, but before he could reply, the Captain's voice issued through Emily's com badge again. "Voyager to Anderson."

Emily's attention snapped back to the situation at hand. "Yes, Captain."

"Miss Anderson, I want you to keep your full attention on Mr. Starling. Doctor?"

"Here, Captain," the Doctor said, moving closer.

"Take Miss Anderson's com badge and place it on Mr. Starling."

The Doctor complied quickly. Starling looked first startled, then apprehensive.

"Emily," Emily had to move closer to Starling to hear what the Captain was saying, "Commander Tuvok has just sent an—email, I believe he said—to Starling's computer with directions to Griffith Observatory. As soon as this communication is terminated, access that email and join Mr. Paris and Mr. Tuvok there. Tuvok will triangulate your position with his tricorder, and Commander Chakotay will beam you aboard a  shuttlecraft. We'll try to upload the Doctor's program from here."

"Yes, Captain."

The Doctor stirred as if to speak, but he didn't get a chance.

"Commander, energize," the Captain ordered peremptorily. At the same instant, Starling moved suddenly, pulling something from his right front pocket. 

Emily fired her phaser, but the beam went right through him as he dematerialized before their eyes. She turned to stare at the Doctor. "What was that all about?"

The EMH was already seated at the computer, decrypting the password to Starling's email program. "It appears that we are to take a stroll through Los Angeles," the Doctor replied brightly.

"We?" Emily inquired

"Certainly," the Doctor said briskly. "My program isn't in Starling's database anymore, it's in the—'mobile emitter,' as you called it. I'm ready to see the countryside!"

Emily laughed, bending over his shoulder to read the email from Tuvok. "Okay, Doc," she said, "but don't blame me if—" she stopped quickly, and both of them spun around at the sound of a footstep behind them.

"Drop your weapon, hologram, and turn around, slowly, or I'll fire on the girl," said a harsh voice from the door. "I've got a clear shot, and my weapon is set to kill." 

Emily stared in horror at the drab man in a brown business suit who stood framed in the doorway. They had forgotten about Dunbar.

"I said, drop it!" he yelled.

The Doctor quickly dropped the phaser onto the floor and raised his hands.

Dunbar gestured to her with his phaser. "Back up and stand next to your friend. Not too close!" he added, as she obeyed. "Now both of you move two steps forward, away from the desk."

They did as he said. _This is it,_ Emily thought, blankly. _I might die today._ Strangely enough, the thought brought with it no sense of panic, but rather a calm awareness of every detail of the scene. She could see every thread of the finely knit material of the Doctor's sleeve; the sleek lines and buttons of the mobile emitter on his shoulder; the unshaven stubble on Dunbar's chin as he stalked closer, waving his phaser. 

"Back! Move away!" he yelled at them. They moved sideways, and he stepped up to the computer, one beady eye still focused on them. "No funny stuff," he warned, tapping what looked like an emergency password into the computer.

The back of the Doctor's hand touched her shoulder, the simple contact tingling like fire in her heightened state of awareness. She stared straight ahead, ignoring her initial impulse to glance at him. His hand was clasped around his shoulder, fiddling with the emitter. Emily cautiously lifted her own hand, rubbing her arm as if in pain. Something smooth and flat slipped between her fingers. She closed her hand around it, pressing it to her shoulder. One of the Doctor's cool, long fingers reach between her own to press a button on the device, and the next minute his image wavered, and disappeared. Emily clung to the emitter, icy shock washing through her veins. What had he done?

Dunbar turned around, but didn't seem at all alarmed by the Doctor's disappearance. "Huh," he muttered, as if to himself. "I didn't expect adjusting the force-field to turn _him_ off. I'll never understand this weird shit."

Emily was glad he didn't understand the technology, or he would have known, as she did, that the force-field controls didn't affect holographic matrices in the slightest. She slipped her hand down her arm and held her hands back at her sides, clutching the emitter to her palm with her thumb and forcing her fingers to relax as if her hand was empty. The Doctor had just worked an amazing bit of slight-of-hand. She just wished she knew _why_. _I hope he knows I don't know how to work this thing…_

"What have you done with the Doctor?" she demanded, trying to sound panicked. 

Dunbar grinned unpleasantly. "Damned if I know," he said cheerfully. "Beats having to _figure out_ how to turn it off. Just you and me now, girlie." He opened a desk drawer, and Emily took advantage of his momentary distraction to slip the mobile emitter carefully up the sleeve of her turtleneck. Dunbar turned around, and Emily saw with a sinking heart that he held two pairs of handcuffs, and a short, metal chain. "Turn around," he told her gruffly. "That way. Move!" 

The force field that enclosed the timeship was down, and Emily backed slowly into the room that held it, watching Dunbar intently. _Sometime, he's going to have to put that phaser down, if he wants to chain me up,_ she thought. _And when he does…_ She began going over self-defense moves in her head. _He's a lot stronger than me, but he isn't in great shape. I might be able to get free. If I watch where he puts the phaser…_

She bumped into something sleek and cold behind her and stopped. _Hello, Aeon,_ she thought whimsically. Dunbar advanced steadily toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. When he was about 12 inches from her, he put the phaser snugly against her temple and grabbed her arm. _What was that Mercedes Lackey characters used to say?_ her mind babbled to itself in a detached, faintly amused tone, as Dunbar slipped a cuff around her wrist one-handed and then grabbed her other hand. The phaser at her head never wavered. '_Plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy'…Oh, well…_

Once he had her hands bound tightly behind her back, Dunbar dragged her to the wall and locked his length of chain to a metal bar embedded in the plaster. He removed the gun from her head, but before she could try any of the fancy kicks her holographic coach had taught her, he had kicked her in the back of the knee. She fell, her bound wrists twisting painfully under her weight, her head cracking against the tile floor, and lay there, stunned, as he cuffed her ankles together and locked them to the chain. Then he stood, dusting his hands together in a satisfied manner. "There," he said, grinning. "Let's see if we can't arrange an exchange of hostages with your Captain."

"Captain Janeway won't negotiate with you," Emily managed to say, slowly and clearly, as the man's menacing face swam in and out of her foggy vision. She hoped she wasn't going to black out.

"Oh, I think she will." The man turned and left the room, moving back to the computer on Starling's desk. He tapped in a command, and the force field went back up, obscuring him from view, and leaving Emily to fight a losing battle for consciousness.

She awoke to the feeling of someone slapping her lightly on the face, and opened her eyes to stare blankly into the Doctor's keep ones. "How…?" she murmured weakly.

"I downloaded my program back into Starling's computer," the Doctor explained, helping her into a seated position, "but I programmed the emitter to re-upload me in fifteen minutes. I didn't know what good it would do, but I thought I could through that disgusting man off guard, at least."

Emily nodded her comprehension, then wished she hadn't as knifelike pain sliced through her head. "Ow."

The Doctor felt the base of her skull with skillful, practiced fingers. "You have a nasty bump there," he told her unsympathetically. "Perhaps a small concussion, but nothing serious."

"Thanks," Emily told him dryly. "Dunbar's out there trying to negotiate an exchange of hostages with the Captain."

The Doctor frowned. "I see. In that case, maybe I'd better stay out of sight." He moved away and settled behind the timeship. "I wouldn't want Mr. Dunbar to come back and discover that I'm still around."

Emily shook her head, no, then doubled over, fighting nausea, as the room spun around her.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked her, the cat's whiskers still gracing his face twitching a little in concern.

"Yes," Emily said faintly. "Just dizzy."

The Doctor frowned. "That's not a good si—" he stopped speaking suddenly. 

Emily looked up to find Dunbar moving toward them, the force-field once again deactivated. The man unlocked the chain attaching her to the wall and grabbed her shoulder roughly. "Stand up!" he barked, yanking her to her feet. Emily gritted her teeth and wondered if her wrists were broken. It sure felt like it.

Dunbar gave her a once over, then suddenly, viciously, and calculatedly punched her in the side of the face. She yelled in pain, and would have fallen except for the man's grip on her shoulder. "Stand!" he yelled impatiently as she sagged against him, blackness creeping into her vision. He shook her. "Stand up!"

Emily gave it her best shot, more to stop him from shaking her than for any other reason. She closed her eyes against the double vision this new blow to her head had caused, ignored the renewed pain in her arms, and concentrated on balancing on her feet.

"Come on," Dunbar muttered. "Your Captain wants to see you."

_What?_

He pushed her, stumbling on the cuffs around her ankles, into the main office. They stopped. Emily, in her dazed state, didn't know why. She didn't dare open her eyes, or the dizziness might make her fall, and then he would shake her again.

"There, you see?" Dunbar said from over her right shoulder, in a tone of smug triumph.

There was a pause; then, "What have you done to her?" The indignant voice before her was so familiar, and so unexpected, that Emily's eyes flew open involuntarily. Seated in her command chair on Voyager's bridge, and staring at her from the screen of Starling's computer with outrage etched in every line of her face and horror in her eyes, was the Captain.

"Only given her a little taste of what's in store for her if you don't cooperate with my very reasonable suggestion," Dunbar said calmly.

The Captain's face darkened, and the icy coldness in her eyes as she glared at him made even that hardened thug cringe back a little from the computer screen. "Is that a threat, Mr. Dunbar?" she grated.

"More like a warning, Captain."

Emily opened her mouth, and found she had to lick blood off her lips before she could speak. "It—It's not so bad, Captain," she croaked. "And I—I know you can't do as he asks."

Dunbar's hand squeezed her shoulder till it cut off all circulation. "Shut up," he hissed.

Captain Janeway met Emily's eyes, and for just a second Emily read clearly on her face the depth of the compassion, pity, pride and approval the woman felt. There was also a measure of reassurance in her glance, and Emily knew that, whatever she might say to Dunbar, the Captain had not given up hope of rescuing her.

The next instant, Janeway's face shut down, and she stared back at Dunbar with cold immobility. "I don't respond well to threats, Mr. Dunbar," she said flatly. "This conversation is over." And the screen went blank.

Dunbar swore foully, and dragged Emily back towards the timeship. "Well, you turned out to be useless!" he growled, pushing her to the floor by the wall. Emily toppled like a rag doll, but managed to save herself cracking her head again. It was amazing and disorienting to discover how little control she had of her body with her hands tied behind her back like that. Still muttering under his breath, Dunbar locked her to the wall again and stumped over to the timeship. "…was hoping I wouldn't have to mess with this thing…" Emily caught the words as he keyed in the pass code to open the door and sat down in the pilot's seat. "…no other choice…"

Moments passed in tense silence. Emily couldn't see what Dunbar was up to from her position on the floor, nor could she muster the equilibrium to sit up, much less stand. Her wrists, bound and twisted against the floor under her back, sent shooting pains up her spine into her neck, where they combined with the monstrous headache she was only just beginning to truly feel. _I wonder where the Doctor is hiding?_

Aeon powered up, humming like a shuttlecraft about to take off. Emily frowned. He couldn't be planning to launch it from here? He'd take out half of the Chronowerx building if he did!

"Gotcha," Dunbar's small grunt of triumph was barely audible. Seconds later, much to Emily's shock and dismay, Henry Starling materialized beside the time ship. Dunbar powered down the engine and stepped out of the timeship. Starling strode to the computer, sparing his underling an approving glance over his shoulder. "Mr. Dunbar, good work," he said. "I think it's time to get outta here."

Dunbar nodded, watching as his superior bent over the computer keyboard. Neither man saw the Doctor crawl out from behind the timeship, swearing under his breath as his long cat's tail caught on the ship. "…going to _kill_ whoever reprogrammed my matrix… Miss Anderson, how are you?"

"Okay," Emily whispered quickly. "Doctor, what are we going to do?"

"I've programmed Aeon's computer to download my program and turn me off as soon as I board the ship," he replied. "There are holo-emitters all through the timeship. The mobile emitter will re-upload my program automatically in half an hour. Wherever these idiots think they're going with the ship, I'm going too. And hopefully," he added acerbically, "I'll be able to stop them from blowing up the solar system."

"But what do you know about calibrating a temporal matrix?" Emily asked him doubtfully.

"Nothing," the Doctor acknowledged as he moved toward the open door of the timeship. "But I do know a bit about sabotage."

Emily dredged up a smile from some reservoir of hope inside her she hadn't known existed. "Good luck," she whispered, as he dematerialized.

A few minutes later, Starling and Dunbar walked toward her, Starling talking over his shoulder to his dutiful toady. "…learned my lesson. That computer is set to wipe itself clean if anybody so much as touches it. And if someone tries to use a _tricorder_ on it, it'll blow up, and hopefully take the person using it with it."

Dunbar nodded. "Good idea, sir."

Starling frowned as he faced forward. "What is _she_ doing here?" Emily realized he was looking at her.

"I tried to use her as a hostage to negotiate for your release, boss, but their captain wouldn't go for it. That's when I used the ship's transporters to get you away from them."

Starling grinned and clapped the other man on the back. "You've got a good brain there, Dunbar," he said. "Remind me to make you a partner when I get back from the 29th century."

It was Dunbar's turn to grin. "Yes, _sir_! I'll do that!"

"Now," Starling's face turned serious again. "We don't have a lot of time. What I need is a diversion."

Dunbar nodded, his face receptive. "Uh-huh?"

Starling held out a small device. "Take this. It's a temporal transponder set to give off tachyon signals. Get one of the trucks from the warehouse, put this in it, and drive west. It'll fool those idiots on Voyager into thinking I'm moving the ship in order to launch it. If anyone follows you, do whatever you have to do."

"All right." Dunbar nodded, licking his lips and fingering his phaser. "All right. Meanwhile, I guess you'll launch the ship from another location?"

Starling nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face. "From right here, my friend."

Dunbar's eyes widened, but he just nodded and took the tachyon device. "Oh—boss."

"Yes?"

"What about her?"

Both men glanced at Emily, who did her best to give the impression she was unconscious. It wasn't hard to do. Starling shrugged. "She isn't going anywhere. Leave her here for now, and deal with her—permanently—when you get back."

"Will do," Dunbar said casually, and with a mock salute he turned and strode away. Emily heard the office door slam shut behind him.

When she opened her eyes, Starling was in the pilot's seat of the timeship. The door slid shut with a small, familiar swishing noise, and the equally familiar humming as he powered up the engines filled her with an icy dread. It was up to the Doctor, now.

It took the man forever to launch the timeship. He sat there fiddling with the controls for so long, Emily nearly screamed from pure, raw nervousness. What if the Doctor materialized before he took off?

Finally the timeship rose several feet off the ground and spun to face the far wall of the building. With a high-pitched roar, it shot towards—and through—the wall. There was an enormous crash, as the small ship punched a large hole in the wall and disappeared into the blinding sunlight that streamed in. The building shook and rocked as if hit by an earthquake. Then there was another crash, as the ceiling above the hole in the wall collapsed in on itself. Something struck Emily on the head _again_, and she knew no more.

*           *            *

When she awoke, she was staring at the ugly grey ceiling of Voyager's sickbay. She sat up quickly, ignoring a slight twinge in her left wrist, and a dull ache in her right temple. She looked around, and attempted a rather poor excuse for a smile when she saw Kes standing by her bedside. The Occampa was not her usual, radiant self either. 

"What's happening?" Emily asked.

"They stopped Starling," Kes said quickly, and Emily breathed a sigh of relief.

"How?"

"I'm not sure." the small woman told her. "No one really is. The Captain would like to see you on the bridge right away."

Emily nodded and stood up experimentally. Aside from the headache, exhaustion, and the pain in her wrist, she felt okay. She smiled a bit more genuinely at Kes. "I guess I'd better go, then."

Kes nodded.

When Emily stepped through the turbolift doors onto the bridge, she saw the senior staff, all in their usual places; Tuvok at tactical, Harry at ops, Tom in the pilot's chair, and the Captain and Chakotay standing side by side in front of the viewscreen. Emily breathed another sigh of relief. Everyone seemed to be staring at the vacant stars on the viewscreen. They looked stunned.

Then Tom looked over at her and grinned slightly. Captain Janeway caught his movement, and turned also. "Welcome back, Miss Anderson," she said, her voice and eyes warm. 

"Um, reporting as ordered, Captain. What—what happened?"

"Starling launched the timeship," the Captain said, in a low, subdued voice, "after leading us on a wild goose chase after a decoy in a juggernaut. Our weapons were down, and I went to torpedo bay one to reconfigure it for a manual launch. A spatial rift was opening, and we thought the torpedo was our last shot at stopping him before he went through it and destroyed the solar system."

She fell silent, and Chakotay picked up the tale. "We hailed Starling and ordered him to pull away from the rift. Of course, he refused. I was about to tell the Captain to fire, when a hand appeared over Starling's shoulder and did something to his controls. We couldn't tell what. Whatever it did—a few seconds later the ship was vaporized."

Emily stared at him.

"Our shuttlecraft beamed you out of the Chronowerx building shortly after Mr. Starling launched the timeship," Captain Janeway added gently after a moment. "We're hoping you can tell us who else was on that timeship."

Emily continued to stare at them with her mouth open. It took several seconds for what they were saying to penetrate her foggy brain. Then she drew a sudden, ragged breath that almost turned into a sob. "The—Doctor," she replied in a choked voice. "The Doctor was on the timeship."

The silence that followed her breathless statement was palpable.

"Captain!" Harry Kim's voice broke the silence sharply. "Another temporal rift has opened. There's a ship coming through!"

"Onscreen," the Captain responded instantly. A huge rift of blinding white light showed between the stars on the viewscreen. Emily could just barely make out a small black dot within it, moving toward them.

"It's hailing," Kim said.

"Onscreen."

The view of the temporal rift was replaced by the head and shoulders of a broad-faced, square-jawed man in his early fifties, who sat at the helm of a small ship.

"Captain Braxton!" Janeway gasped.

"Do you know me?" the captain asked, obviously surprised.

"Yes, unfortunately," Chakotay replied shortly, without his normal good humor. 

"You tried to destroy our ship in the 24th century, and the next time we saw you, you were an old man, homeless, in 1996," the Captain clarified. Her usual diplomatic charm seemed to have deserted her as well.

"I never experienced that timeline," Captain Braxton shrugged.

"Then what are you doing here?" Chakotay demanded.

"In my century we can scan time much as you use sensors to scan space," Braxton replied calmly. "The Temporal Integrity Commission detected Voyager over 20th century Earth. I was sent to correct that anomaly. Prepare to follow me back into the rift. I'm returning you to your own time, to your previous co-ordinates in the Delta Quadrant." 

"Captain," Janeway said quickly, "we've been trying to get home to Earth for the last two years. Can you return us to our century but keep us here, in the Alpha Quadrant?"

Braxton shook his head. "I'm sorry, Temporal Prime Directive. I'm afraid you're on your own. Braxton out."

Janeway sighed resignedly and gave Paris the order for Voyager to follow Braxton.

"Wait! Captain!" Kim called suddenly. "I'm detecting a tiny piece of debris floating in space, about 500 kilometers from the explosion of the other timeship. I'm getting—strange readings—from it. I can't tell what it is."

Janeway shook her head. "There's no time, Mr. Kim. The rift is opening."

"If it is debris from a ship capable of time travel," Tuvok pointed out, "we don't want to leave it here to be discovered by a 20th century space ship."

The Captain glanced at him swiftly, then nodded. "All right. Mr. Kim, beam the thing aboard. Mr. Paris, keep following Captain Braxton. Chakotay, you have the bridge. I'll be in the transporter room.

Emily followed as Captain Janeway entered the turbolift. "May I come too?"

"Certainly."

The turbolift doors shut with a whoosh, then opened a minute later on the transporter room. A small black object was lying on the transport site.

"Doctor!!" Emily cried, electrifying the Captain by dashing around her, running across the room and scooping up the mobile emitter.

"Emily, what are you talking about?"

"It's the Doctor! It's his mobile emitter!—" Emily broke off suddenly, after glancing at the Captain's puzzled expression. "Oh, of course you wouldn't understand. You weren't there! He found it in Starling's office. It's 29th century technology that allows him to download his holo-matrix and take it with him wherever he goes. That's how he got onto the ship in the first place…" Emily was studying the little device frantically as she babbled. The Captain watched her warily. Finally she gave up. "Drat! I have no idea how this works. Can you activate it, Captain?"

Emily's hand shook with nervous excitement as she held the device out to Captain Janeway. The Captain took it and examined it carefully, while Emily hopped impatiently from one foot to the other, exhaustion and headache completely forgotten. Finally, after what seemed eons to the anxious girl, the Captain shook her head. "Whatever it is, I don't think it works," she said, then added, as Emily's lips trembled and she turned her face away, "but we'll take it to B'Elanna to make sure. And when we get to the bridge, I want you to tell me exactly what happened in the Chronowerx building."

Emily tried to be as exact and unemotional as she could as she explained her part in the mission, understanding that the Captain needed all the facts, but she couldn't stop her voice from trembling as she described the Doctor's first encounter with pain, nor again, when she explained how he'd boarded the timeship and dematerialized. As she concluded her recital and bit her lip to keep from crying, the Captain wordlessly handed the broken mobile emitter to her stunned Chief Engineer. 

B'Elanna examined it, then turned to the Captain. "There's _something_ in it," she said, a catch in her usually brusque voice, "but it may take me days to get it out, and even then… The signals are all scrambled. I think it must have been downloading the Doctor's program when the ship exploded. It's impossible to say how much it got."

"Make that one of your top priorities," Janeway told her, her voice rather husky. "We need our doctor back, if it's in any way possible." B'Elanna nodded, and left the bridge, emitter in hand. The Captain turned to her Executive Officer. "Mr. Chakotay, where are we?"

Chakotay sighed. "We're in the Delta Quadrant," he said. "Stardate 50312.5. The exact date and time we left."

*             *              *

Twelve hours  later… 

Emily sighed disconsolately as she stared up at the ceiling. Even after everything she had been through, it was impossible to sleep. She kept hearing the doctor's voice explaining the use of inpedrezine in cranial traumas; smiling as she remembered him recounting some amusing anecdote featuring himself as the hero; laughing herself silly over the ears and whiskers John had programmed into him; seeing his haunted eyes after his first experience of pain; or wishing him luck as he stepped into a timeship—a ludicrous, yet determinedly brave figure, dedicated to saving the future, whatever the cost…

She had haunted engineering, asking almost hourly about B'Elanna's progress on the emitter, until two hours ago when Lieutenant Carey had threatened to throw her out the airlock if she didn't get out of there and let them get their work done. There were repairs to the ship to make, too, of course, and they were all extremely busy. Then Kes had found her wandering the halls and demanded to know why she wasn't in her quarters resting.

So now she was stuck here, with no news.

The entry bell chimed. "Come in," Emily said listlessly, not even looking at the door.

"Well really," annunciated a sharp, barbed voice. "Is that any way to greet a friend?"

Emily spun around. 

"Especially a friend who has narrowly escaped death?" the Doctor went on, the sparkle in his eyes belying the pinched severity of his expression. The ears and whiskers were gone. "_Especially_," he added, with an ill concealed smirk of self-satisfaction, "a friend who narrowly escaped death while saving trillions of lives?"

"Doctor!" Emily gasped, recovering her power of speech. Then she jumped up and flew across the room to hug him tightly. "You're _alive_!!"

"Well—yes—" the Doctor acknowledged stiffly, rather awkwardly slipping his arms around her shoulders and giving her an indifferent pat on the back. "In a manner of speaking, of course. Lieutenant Torres was able to salvage my program, at any rate."

Emily just hugged him tighter. "I'm so glad!"

"Now really," the Doctor protested, the old irritation back in his voice. "I'm gratified that you're happy, but—you're as bad as Kes!"

Emily laughed at that, and let him go. "It's a female thing," she assured him solemnly.

"Be that as it may," the Doctor said sternly, "the Captain wishes us to gather in the mess hall for a—toast, I believe she said. Would you care to accompany me?"

Emily grinned. "Sure," she said casually. "Since I haven't got anything better to do."

The Doctor looked at her suspiciously as she preceded him out of her quarters, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

There was applause when they stepped into the mess hall, and the Doctor beamed proudly as he made his way toward his fellow crewmembers.

"Glad to have you back, Doctor," Chakotay said, grinning and slapping the Doctor on the back in a comradely fashion.

"I'm glad to be here, Commander," the Doctor responded, a pleased smile on his thin lips.

"Welcome back, Doctor," Neelix said genially, handing both the newcomers glasses of synthohol.

"Thank you, Neelix," the Doctor said, graciously accepting the beverage though Emily knew he couldn't drink it.

"Now that we're _all_ here," the Captain said, smiling widely at the Doctor and nodding warmly to Emily, "I would like to propose a toast."

Everyone quieted and looked up.

"To the future," the Captain said.

They all drank, with smiles and light hearts. Emily grinned at the hologram by her side, fiercely proud. Because of him, there would _be_ a future.

"So how long will you be out and about, Doctor?" the Captain asked, moving to the Doctor's other side. 

"If you're referring to my new-found mobility," the Doctor said smugly, "that is entirely up to me." 

"I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the Doctor's autonomous emitter works but it looks like downloading him back into the ship's isn't going to be much of a problem," B'Elanna smiled. 

And apparently the reverse is also true," the Doctor added. "I will be able to make use of the emitter as casually as you would slip on a pair of shoes."

The chief engineer laughed. "It's a little more involved than that."

The Doctor turned to Kes, as she Neelix made their way toward them. "You know, Kes," he said, "now that I will be to and fro, your responsibilities in Sickbay will increase."

"I'm up to the challenge, Doctor," the Occampa grinned. "But what about you? There's going to be more to your life now than Sickbay." 

The Doctor bristled a little. "Nothing I can't handle. You know, Captain, I've always wanted a little more privacy. Perhaps under the circumstances my own quarters…?" 

Janeway laughed and held up one hand in a playful warding gesture. "One step at a time, Doctor."

"Emily!" Emily turned at the sound of her name from behind her, and grinned delightedly into the equally delighted faces of Ensigns Robertson and Hogan. 

"You're all right!" Andrew said, a huge smile nearly splitting his face in two.

"Yes," she reassured them quickly. "I'm absolutely fine."

They ushered her toward a table piled with food, and suddenly she realized she was very hungry indeed. She literally couldn't remember when she'd last eaten. "I can't believe they left you behind!" John said, as they piled their plates with the delicacies Neelix had prepared for the occasion. "What a screw up! I bet someone's in it for that!"

Emily glanced to her right, where Harry Kim stood talking to Tom and Joe Carey. The young man flushed and looked away when she caught his eyes. Emily turned a troubled gaze back to her two friends. "I don't know. I haven't heard anything about someone being in trouble," she said quickly. "Maybe if we don't draw attention to it, they'll forget all about it. After all," she raised her voice slightly, "it was an easy mistake to make, since I'm not an officer and I'd never been on an away mission before."

The two young men at her side didn't look convinced. Emily resolutely refrained from looking at Harry again.

The evening passed quickly with laughter and plenty of happy conversation. If there was a muted quality to the celebration, it was only because of the relief they felt that the mission had turned out well. Paris, Tuvok and Chakotay stood by the refreshments. Paris was evidently regaling the Commander with a humorous anecdote, while the Vulcan stood by, uncomprehending. The Captain was chatting quietly with Ensign Kaplan and several other lower ranking officers whose names Emily had yet to learn. She guessed they were probably the crew that had taken the away team's place on the bridge. Kes and Neelix were talking animatedly with the Doctor, Neelix apparently bewailing the fact that the hologram couldn't try any of his superb Bolian suffle. Beside her, Andrew and John stood, grinning like idiots and chomping German chocolate cake as if in a race to see who could eat the most the fastest. Despite a sharp twinge of sadness at the faces that were not there—her mother, her father, and Trixie—Emily had to smile. She was home. 

Towards the end of the evening, when John and Andrew had finally stuffed themselves as full as they possibly could, the trio left the mess hall, Emily ribbing her friends about how much German chocolate cake they had consumed. In the hall outside the mess, they passed Lieutenants Paris and Tuvok, apparently deep in conversation.

"Tuvok," Tom was saying seriously to the Vulcan, "has anyone ever told you you're a real freakasaurus?"

Tuvok looked nonplussed. 

Emily giggled and hurried to catch up with her friends, making a mental note to ask Tom what that was about sometime soon. Apparently she had missed a lot while she'd been gone.


	16. Prelude to a Q

Author's Note: _A shorter chapter this time. But more soon, of course. I can't leave it here! *grin*_

Disclaimer: _Don't sue me. Voyager and all its associated characters and plot ideas belong to Paramount, and I'm just a poor, devoted fan who hasn't accepted the fact that the show is over._

Prelude to a Q

"Oh, dammit, that is _not_ right!" Emily glared at the musical notation on the stand in front of her and stamped her foot impatiently. "_That's _a B-flat, and _that's_ a B-natural—really, dummy, there's no need to improvise when the stupid notes are right there in front of you!" she continued, in a caustic tone highly reminiscent of the Doctor, as her pencil marked the offending passages in quick, annoyed strokes. "And then I think—" her pencil hovered halfway through the next page— "The tempo here still isn't right. I was so afraid of dragging that maybe now I'm too—Oh I wish I had someone to explain how this should _sound_! But it seems like there's a—a haunting quality, maybe?—that I'm not getting."

She sighed, lifted the instrument she held in her left hand back into position, and dropped the pencil onto the music stand. It promptly slipped to the floor, and she let out an exasperated snort, but ignored it, fingering the opening note of the second theme. "Well, let's see what happens if I take it just the smallest bit slower…"

The second theme of the third movement of the difficult, but strangely beautiful piece filled the room, but was soon cut off again, not by a mistake this time, but by the chime of someone requesting entrance to her quarters. Emily took the clarinet from her mouth and called, "Come in!"

There was a moment of silence, and Emily was about to repeat herself, when the door swished open to reveal a rather sheepish-looking Kes. "I'm sorry," the tiny Occampa said. "I was standing outside listening to the music, and I accidentally leaned on the entry bell."

"Oh! Well that's all right, no problem," Emily laughed, then stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth. "Crap!" she exclaimed through her fingers. "That means I forgot to soundproof the room before I started practicing! Shit, I wonder who else I'm bothering? Sorry!"

"You weren't 'bothering' me at all," Kes smiled. "My quarters aren't even in this section. I was just taking a walk, and happened to hear your music. It's beautiful."

Emily snorted a little disbelievingly. "Right. Well I guess you haven't been here long enough to realize that I've been playing the same dissonant passage over and over for the past hour. I bet I'm driving my neighbors crazy."

Kes's smile deepened, and she shook her head slightly as she stepped into the room, but all she said was, "What is that song called?"

"Emily stepped closer to the stand that held the music. It's the third movement of Halina Szymborska's  _Sonata for Clarinet by Herself_. An early 22nd century piece from Earth.

Kes moved to stand beside Emily. She drew in her breath slightly as she surveyed the notes on the page. "Fascinating," she breathed. "It's like another language."

Emily grinned. "I guess it is, in a way. Didn't you have music on Occampa?"

"Oh yes," Kes said quickly, a fond smile creasing her features. "But we didn't need to write it down. Often we didn't even sing aloud."

"Oh…" Emily breathed. "You mean you sang to each other in your minds?"

Kes nodded, laughing a little. "Sort of. There's so much more variety when you can simply conceive of the sound and then allow others to hear it. Externally, you have only one voice, but internally you have as many voices and kinds of sounds as you can imagine."

"Wow. Did you have composers?"

"What?"

"Professional people whose occupation was to create music."

"Oh, the song-givers. Yes," Kes smiled. "There are always a couple in every generation who are especially gifted at imagining complex and beautiful songs. They're some of the most treasured people in our culture."

"But—If you never write the music down, what happens when they die?"

"By then they've managed to communicate the songs to many of their students. If they haven't it's a terrible tragedy. It's a difficult skill to learn—to hold such a complex creation in your head and communicate it to others, but it isn't as hard as creating it in the first place."

"Performers," Emily breathed, excitement at this new discovery tingling down her spine and through her fingertips. "Telepathic music. My God. And it's an oral tradition, but it isn't oral, because it's all in people's heads. Wow."

"This makes sense, though." Kes was studying the notes on Emily's music stand again. "The song-giver—composer—imagines the sounds, but then it has to be transformed into a physical representation. So he writes it down for other people, and creates mechanical instruments to come as close as he can make them to the sounds in his head."

Emily laughed. "Yes, only more often a composer writes music for different combinations of instruments that already exist. Because he's already heard them, and the—the external sound of the instrument inspires him or her to write something for it."

Kes smiled delightedly. "Fascinating."

Emily nodded. "I can't imagine being able to create something like a symphony, hold it in my mind, and communicate it to others. It's amazing to think about."

"It isn't always a good thing," Kes said, her smile turning a little wicked.

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever had a really annoying tune in your mind that you couldn't get rid of?" Emily nodded, puzzled, then suddenly began to giggle. Kes grinned. "Let's just say that if that happened to you on Occampa, it wouldn't endear you very much to anyone else within range of your mind. In fact, that's one of—" 

She stopped abruptly, and when Emily glanced again at her face, her expression was remote; sad, and yet with a trace of hardness to it that had been totally absent from any part of the tiny woman's demeanor as little as a month ago. "One of what?" Emily asked softly, wondering even as she spoke if she ought to have remained silent.

Kes's eyes focused back on Emily's face, and the hardness receded slightly as she replied, "One of the tactics I used to defeat Tieran. I held a beautiful, sad melody in my mind so that it repeated over and over in his. He had no way to shut it out."

"Oh." 

Emily had been in sickbay when the Ilarians were beamed there from their hopelessly damaged vessel, and she had handed Kes the instruments she needed to treat their radiation burns, and watched her fight to save the most badly injured victim. Then she had stood in the background as Kes tried to comfort the widow when he died. For a while afterward she had blamed herself for not noticing the difference in Kes after that day, but the truth was, as the Doctor finally pointed out to her somewhat irritably, that Tieran had managed to fool the entire crew—even Neelix, who would have seen the problem if anyone could have. It was only when the two Ilarians, along with Kes, escaped in a shuttlecraft that Emily and the rest of the crew had learned the horrifying truth—that the alien consciousness of the dead man had taken possession of Kes's body in order to continue to pursue his dream of once again ruling the Ilari world.

"I don't know what it was, exactly, about that particular song," Kes continued quietly, "but Tieran couldn't handle it. It reminded him of his mother."

Emily stood silently, uncertain how to respond. 

Kes had wrapped her arms around her chest, as if she were cold. She sank onto the couch next to a pile of sheet music and stared sightlessly at a spot somewhere to the right of Emily's head. "I hated doing that to him," she said, and her voice was so quiet Emily had to strain to hear it. "I hated it almost as much as I hated what he was using my body to do. I said he was a monster, and I told him I had no compassion for him, but that wasn't true, even though I believed it then. I could see his whole life in his mind—the horrible emotional pain, and the selfish retreat from it that made him what he was—and even though I used it, I understood it. I found every crack in his defenses, and exploited it without pity or mercy. I learned cruelty and ruthlessness from his mind, and used the knowledge to destroy him.

"I had to do it," she said, looking small and lost, hunched up on the grey sofa. There was no defensiveness in the assertion; she was just stating a fact. "I had to stop him. Sitting there and watching him use me to kill would have been worse. But to stop him, I had to understand him." She looked into Emily's eyes as if she were looking into a mirror. "It's all mixed up," she said softly. "How is it that you have to become capable of evil to stop evil from being done?"

Emily stood paralyzed. She ached, with a longing so deep it was a real, physical pain, to ease the anguish that shrieked through the tension in Kes's body; to say something that would drive that lost, bewildered look from her eyes. This was a question for the Captain, or Chakotay, or _anyone_ who had had the experience of doing what was necessary, even if it was also cruel or wrong. Except that maybe they had each created their own explanations or rationalizations in their own minds, and Emily thought that Kes was incapable of doing that. Emily could think of no completely honest way to explain the cruel truth Kes had expressed, nor could she think of any rationalization that would make Kes's own actions less painful to her. She already knew they had been necessary.

They remained still, in the small room that seemed to Emily to vibrate with the intensity of the emotion it contained, for a space of time that seemed to have no definable measurement. Then Kes's com badge chirped, and the moment broke. 

"Janeway to Kes."

The Occampa sat straighter, and her face regained it's usual serene expression as she tapped the small device pinned to her shirt. "Kes here." 

"Kes," the Captain's voice rang with suppressed excitement, "in exactly two minutes and thirty-six seconds we will be within viewing range of a supernova explosion. If you'd like, consider yourself invited to the bridge for a front row seat."

Kes's eyes lit up. "Oh—Captain, thank you, I'm on my way! Kes ou—wait!"

"Yes?"

"Emily's here with me. Can she come too?"

A small hesitation, then, "Certainly, but the two of you had better hurry! Janeway out."

The room fell silent again, and Kes looked up at Emily, standing speechless in the middle of the room, one tension-stiff hand still unthinkingly clutching her clarinet. The Occampa smiled, and the warmth of it spread over her face like a sunrise, though her eyes still sparkled as if with unshed tears. She stood, crossed the room, and embraced the startled musician. "Thank you," she said softly.

Awkwardly, Emily returned the embrace one-armed. "For what?" she asked. "I didn't do anything."

Kes drew back to look into her eyes. "Yes you did," she said, a single tear tracing a path from the corner of her eye to the corner of her still-smiling lips. "You understood." 

She stepped back and brushed the tear away with the back of her hand. "We'd better go. We don't want to miss a supernova."

Emily found herself smiling in return, and she nodded as they moved together toward the door. No, they didn't want to miss a supernova.

*           *           *

"Incredible," Chakotay breathed, still staring at the viewscreen.

Captain Janeway flashed one of her rare grins in his direction. "Absolutely thrilling," she agreed.

"All I can say is - wow!" Neelix's voice was even more animated than usual. He turned to Tuvok. "What about you, Mr. Vulcan? Isn't that just.....wow?"

"Your inarticulate expression of awe notwithstanding, Mr. Neelix, it was a fascinating spectacle," the tactical officer replied with what, if seen in a human expression, could have been called suppressed annoyance. Emily giggled, finally moving her dazzled eyes from the main viewscreen.

The ship shuddered slightly. "That's the edge of the shockwave." Harry reported from his station at Ops. "The pressure is over 90 kilopascals, 30% more than we predicted."

"Tom, back us off at full impulse," the Captain ordered. "I want to stay ahead of the brunt of that wave." 

"Yes, ma'am."

"Congratulations, everyone," the Captain continued. "Only two other crews in the history of Starfleet have witnessed a supernova explosion."

"And neither one was this close," Harry added happily. "Less than ten billion kilometers. Definitely a record."

Captain Janeway smiled. "Who brought the champagne?"

"Champagne? Captain, if I'd thought you wanted champagne—"

Janeway laughed. "Relax, Neelix. It's a figure of speech."

"Thanks for inviting us to watch with you, Captain," Kes said, eyes shining. "It's really gotten me interested in learning more about stellar phenomena."

Emily nodded enthusiastically. 

The Doctor snorted audibly. "Just remember, Kes, Emily, anyone can stargaze on the bridge, even a hologram with a mobile emitter. But the real action will always be in sickbay."

The two young women laughed, and Kes brushed Emily's arm lightly with her hand as she moved to the Doctor's side. Her eyes communicated silent gratitude and friendship as she and the Doctor moved toward the turbolift that would take them back to sickbay. She also bestowed a beaming smile on Neelix as the turbolift doors shut, and the smile was reflected back tenfold in the Talaxian's face. Maybe it had been a while, Emily thought, since he had seen Kes smile like that, with no trace of sadness or wariness in her expression.

"How did those shield modifications hold up, B'Elanna?" the Captain asked.

"Less than a 7% power drain," the engineer replied with satisfaction.

"Good job. Chakotay, what do you say we get started analyzing those carbon-conversion readings?"

"Captain, you've been on the bridge for fourteen straight hours," her first officer admonished. "Don't you think you deserve a little rest? Harry and I will get to work on the astrometric analysis, and we'll give you a full report in the morning."

Janeway smiled and sighed. "You win. I'll see you at 07:00."

As the Captain turned to leave the bridge, Tom glanced over at Emily from the Conn. "Hey, isn't it past your bedtime too?" he joked.

Emily laughed, but surprised herself by yawning halfway through. She laughed again. "I guess it definitely is!" she said, grinning. "Thanks, everyone, for letting me watch that with you. I'll see you two in the morning," she added, nodding to Tom and Harry. "Enjoy your astrometric analysis,"  she continued humorously, deliberately looking only at Harry.

Harry glanced quickly up from his console, flushed a little, and smiled awkwardly. Emily smiled back and scampered to the turbolift before its doors could close on the Captain.

"I'm glad to see that the two of you have mended your fences," the Captain said as the lift began its descent to crew quarters.

Emily smiled and shook her head. "There were none to mend from my point of view," she said quickly. "I think he kept avoiding me because he was afraid I was angry with him. Even now he sometimes acts like he's afraid I'm going to bite his head off without warning." She snorted. "It _doesn't_ help, of course, that Tom keeps teasing him about leaving me behind whenever the spirit moves him."

Captain Janeway shook her head resignedly. "That's Tom for you. When it comes to emotions, he isn't the most observant or sensitive man I've run across."

Emily laughed. "That much is certain! Good night, Captain," she added as the turbolift doors opened on the Captain's level.

The Captain gave her an odd look as she exited the lift. It looked almost like approval or even a certain amount of respect, but Emily could think of nothing she'd done recently to occasion such a look. "Good night," was all the Captain said, as the doors closed. "Pleasant dreams."

Emily stayed on the lift for another two levels, and entered her quarters at 01:23. "God," she groaned, kicking off her shoes and rolling into bed fully clothed. "Computer, wake me up at 07:00 this morning. I'll skip stretching and take only half an hour for breakfast."

The computer beeped agreeably, but Emily was asleep before she could hear the sound.


	17. The Q and the Grey

Author's Note: _Emily meets Q! Enjoy, and please review, of course!_

Disclaimer: _It's pretty obvious what's mine and what isn't. I'm not making money on this. Don't sue._

The Q and the Grey

_The baby starts to wail, an intrusion into their work. Without thinking, Janeway slaps it. Then she recoils in horror. "What are we becoming," she murmurs, "that I am hitting a defenseless baby?" The camera zooms in on Janeway's face, hollow-cheeked, with the spectre of madness lurking in her eyes. The music plays. Emily, the viewer, begins to wonder with horror if even the Continuum can stop an omnipotent being who has lost all grip on its sanity…_

Emily's eyes snapped open and she stared blankly at the ceiling above her bed, heart pounding. She hadn't had that dream in a long time. Why now? She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. It felt as though her mouth was full of cotton. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and tried again. "Computer, time."

"09:51 hours."

"Oh shit!" Emily jerked into a sitting position, rubbing at her crusty eyes with the heels of her hands. "Why didn't you _tell _me?"

"The chronometer has been randomly malfunctioning for four hours, seventeen minutes, and six seconds."

"Dammit. The Doctor is going to kill me," Emily groaned as she untangled herself from her covers and struggled out of bed, reaching for the com badge on her nightstand. "Anderson to Kes."

"Kes here," the gentle voice responded, somehow drawing her waking mind away from her recurring nightmare more thoroughly than the computer's emotionless tones had been able to do. Emily's heart rate slowed noticeably. "What happened? I tried to contact you earlier but you didn't answer your com badge. I thought maybe you'd decided to sleep in after last night."

"I didn't _decide_," Emily said quickly. "The computer's chronometer's been malfunctioning, I guess. It didn't wake me up."

"It's okay anyway. Nothing at all interesting is going on down here, except occasional replicator malfunctions that Engineering is apparently too busy to fix."

Emily laughed. "I'll bet the Doctor's annoyed about that."

"He sees it as yet another example of how he's less important to the crew than anyone else, even though his job is one of the most important on the ship." Kes's voice was sympathetic—even expressed agreement with him—while still holding a hint of amusement. "He's so put out he hasn't even noticed your absence."

"That's sort of a relief," Emily said ruefully. "Will you please apologize to him for me and tell him that if I had decided to sleep in today I would have contacted him to let him know, and not just gone MIA? I'd hate to add to his bad mood, or his sense of ill-usage."

Kes's chuckle spilled over the com link. "I'll do that. Have fun with your studies."

"I will," Emily grinned. "Advanced history of the 23rd century. It should be fascinating! And thanks, Kes. I owe you one."

"You're welcome. Kes out."

Emily slid out of bed and hurried into the bathroom. "Computer, activate sonic shower."

Nothing happened.

"Computer, are you deaf? _Activate sonic shower!"_

"Sonic showers are—"

"—offline," Emily finished with the mechanized voice. "Great. This is going to be a wonderful day."

She moved back across the room and scrambled into her usual uniform, fastening her com badge to her blue turtle neck shirt and twisting her hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. "Toast and marmalade and coffee, hot, with cream and sugar," she told the replicator firmly.

The replicator beeped compliantly enough, but produced instead a bowl of long, wiggling things with legs in a red sauce. Emily recoiled violently. "_Yeeech! _Computer, recycle!"

The offending bowl disappeared, but Emily gave the replicator an unforgiving glance. "Forget it. Even Neelix has to have something better than _that._"

To Emily's relief, everything seemed to be functioning normally in the mess hall when she entered only a few minutes later and collected her breakfast from a radiant Neelix. "Kes is almost back to normal," the Talaxian whispered gleefully in her ear as he ladled some kind of green glop onto her plate before she could stop him. "She said she had a talk with you yesterday that really helped. Thank you."

Emily shrugged and tried to hide her feeling of awkwardness. "I'm truly glad it helped," she smiled back at him, "but I'm really not sure what I did."

Neelix drew breath to reply, but then glanced over her shoulder and grinned pleasantly. "Good morning, Captain!" he said exuberantly. "Care to try my new recipe for—"

"Coffee, Neelix," the Captain snapped. "Now." Emily jumped back out of the irate woman's way. Apparently she was not the only one who had overslept this morning.

Neelix took one look at Janeway's grim expression and said meekly, "Certainly Captain. Right away." He glanced briefly at Emily, his face a question mark, before hurrying off to comply with the thinly veiled demand.

The Captain winced as she watched Neelix's cowed and retreating back, then she sighed and massaged her forehead with the tips of her fingers. "That was uncalled for," she murmured.

Emily shrugged. "Water off a duck's back."

Though her voice was quiet, Janeway started and glanced sharply at her. "What?"

"Just an expression," Emily said quickly, trying not to sound nervous. "I mean, he's so happy this morning that I doubt he'll even remember five minutes from now."

The Captain nodded shortly and looked away, a faint flush on her cheeks. Mentally, Emily kicked herself, realizing that in trying to reassure the Captain she had only succeeded in drawing attention to the fact that her rudeness had been witnessed by another member of the crew. "Um—Enjoy your breakfast, Captain," she said lamely, and hurried back to her quarters.

The green glop was not as bad as it looked. In fact, it tasted vaguely like cream of wheat with maple syrup, and Neelix had actually managed to concoct a stimulant that tasted good, though it was completely unlike coffee. Emily set her food down on the floor and looked skeptically at the replicator. "I don't suppose you can give me Schillton's _The 23rd Century in Retrospect_ in padd format?"

The computer beeped, and Szymborska's _Collected Poetry_ appeared in book format.

Emily sighed. "Computer, recycle. Good. Okay now. Schillton's _The 23rd Century in Retrospect_ in book format if you prefer."

Another beep, and Beethoven's _9th Symphony_ appeared in microchip format.

Emily snorted and removed the chip from the replicator. "I'll take that, but what I'd really like is Schillton's _The 23rd Century in Retrospect_ in whatever format you can produce. Third time's a charm, right?"

Once more the computer beeped. A book appeared, but it was titled, _Louisa May Alcott: A Nineteenth Century Children's Author from a Twenty-Third Century Perspective._

"Well that looks interesting, anyway." Emily set her stimulant down and pulled the book toward her. "Huh. Someone's doctoral dissertation. Cool." She laughed. "I guess that's the best I'm going to get. I might as well go for it."

Decision made, she plopped down in a cross-legged position with her back against the offending replicator, opened the book, and started reading, pausing every so often for a sip of iced stimulant or a bite of green goo.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ship wide announcement came that afternoon. The First Officer's voice jolted Emily's mind from her book, which had proved to be a fascinating window into the details of the life of one of her favorite authors, to announce that the omnipotent being known as Q had been making surprise appearances on the ship. Should he appear, Chakotay continued, any crewmembers present were to take any opportunity that presented itself to figure out what he wanted from them.

Emily froze, eyes wide. _Wait a minute…Supernovas... Q…_ Slowly, both her hands moved to clasp themselves over her open mouth. Her book slid from her lap to the floor with a quiet thump. _Oh, no…I've seen this one..._

The announcement had predictably left out the fact that Q's ostensible motivation was to mate with Captain Janeway, an embarrassing proposition that the Captain certainly wouldn't want spread all over the ship, though doubtless her senior officers had been briefed on it. When Emily had watched the show—it seemed like centuries ago—that attempt at seduction and Janeway's outraged reaction to it had been the most interesting—and certainly the most entertaining—part of the episode. Emily couldn't help smiling just a bit. No wonder the Captain had been so short with Neelix this morning.

But now she was not watching the story but living it, and Emily found herself most interested, not in the seduction attempt, but in the plot of the episode. She remembered vaguely that it had had something to do with Voyager becoming involved in a civil war in the Q Continuum itself. She shivered and clasped her knees to her chest where she sat on the floor. The idea sounded more horrifying than entertaining at the moment. But as she remembered, it was usually only the senior officers who got mixed up in Q's elaborate plots. Maybe, as Voyager's lowest ranking crewmember, she would be able to stay out of the whole thing.

The computer actually informed her of the time at 14:30 hours, and nothing out of the ordinary happened during her self defense lesson. Emily hurried back to her quarters afterward to change, inexplicably more nervous rather than less so. She skipped her reading hour in favor of an early supper, hoping to find out what was going on by eavesdropping on conversations in the mess hall.

"Have you seen him yet?" Neelix demanded fiercely when she approached the counter where he and Kes were busy laying out food.

"Q? No," she responded hopefully, snagging a plate and beginning to serve herself. "Have you?"

Neelix nodded violently. His forehead was wrinkled in a prodigious frown, and his whiskers trembled with fury. "The—the— He had the _gall_ to suggest that I get along on this ship by _bribing_ the Captain!" he burst out.

Emily sternly controlled an impulse to smile. The little Talaxian was positively shaking with outrage at the insult to his loyalty and service.

"As if it would be possible for _anyone_ to bribe our Captain!" he went on, and Emily was suddenly and sheepishly glad she hadn't laughed at him. Neelix wasn't concerned for his own reputation, but for the Captain's.

She laid a hand on his arm. "Everyone on this ship knows how impossible that is," she reminded him quietly. "And Q should too. If I'm remembering correctly, the first time he appeared on Voyager he offered to take everyone back to Earth if Captain Janeway ruled in favor of the Continuum in the matter of Quinn's suicide."

Neelix's eyes widened. "He did?"

_Oh shit._ Emily felt her face redden. _He's not supposed to know that. I guess no one does. Now it'll be all over the ship. Dammit, the Captain's going to kill me!_ Figuring the damage was done, Emily merely nodded. "And of course she ended up ruling in favor of Quinn, so you know how much good that did him. You'd think someone so omnipotent would have a better short-term memory."

Neelix grinned delightedly at the deliberate sarcasm in her tone. Emily grinned back, but then turned and headed out of the room, clutching her half-full plate. _I'd better stay where my stupid tongue can't get me in any more trouble_, she told herself grimly, wishing her quarters had a door that would slam. A quiet swish did not even begin to express her annoyance with herself. _Embarrassing the Captain at breakfast, violating the Temporal Prime Directive at dinner... I'm a walking disaster today._

She set her dinner on the floor in her usual place under the replicator and slid the microchip of Beethoven's _9th _into the media player. _Actually, I didn't really violate the Prime Directive,_ she consoled herself as the first strains of Movement I vibrated through the room. _Because I revealed something about the past, not the future. That's more along the lines of violating a confidence. _She snorted at herself as she slid down the wall and planted her butt next to her dinner. _Great. That makes me feel a lot better. The Captain's still going to kill me._

Finding her thoughts stuck in this discouraging rut, Emily sighed gloomily, pulled her plate toward her and picked up her book.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Captain Janeway and B'Elanna are on the bridge, working desperately to find a way to stop the Q's madness from infecting all of them. Janeway goes to her ready room, and when she returns to the bridge, it has become the kitchen of a 21st Century house. "Captain?" B'Elanna inquires cautiously. "No, I'm still myself," Janeway replies. But she is wearing 19th century hoop skirts, and she begins bustling around the kitchen like a housewife, rather than joining B'Elanna at the table with her padd. The camera zooms in on B'Elanna's frightened face as she watches her altered Captain. The music plays, and the picture fades again._

_When the Captain turns around, her features are those of Louisa May Alcott. She and B'Elanna notice the baby in a highchair at the table, and they know it is Janeway's by Q. Janeway/Louisa sits down across from B'Elanna and they work over their padds with increasingly frantic concentration. The baby starts to wail, an intrusion into their work. Without thinking, Louisa/Janeway slaps it. Then she recoils in horror. "What are we becoming," she murmurs, "that I am hitting a defenseless baby?" The camera zooms in on Louisa May Alcott's face, hollow-cheeked, with the spectre of madness lurking in her eyes. The music plays._

Emily's head was resting on the book open on her knees. Her eye lashes fluttered against the pages. The final chorus of Beethoven's _9th_ surrounded her.

_"Freude, schooner Gotterfunken, / Tachter aus Elysium, / Wir betreten feuertrunken, / Himmlische, dien Heiligtum..."_

It was a dream. It had just been that horrible dream again. It wasn't real. She was here on the floor in her quarters with a _terrible _crick in her neck. She groaned and lifted her head, massaging her shoulder with her fingertips. "Computer," she said automatically, "time."

"64:00 hours," it responded matter-of-factly.

"Oh, yeah, right. I guess Engineering hasn't gotten around to fixing the chronometer yet." She tried not to pay attention to the rest of the thought: _They wouldn't have, if they're off in the Continuum trying to keep Captain Janeway from getting killed in a Q civil war. _Emily found herself shivering uncontrollably.

_"Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele / Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund! / Und wer's nie gekann, der stehle..."_

"Oh, shut up!" Emily snapped, as the joyful music continued to flow around her. "Computer music _off!_"

For once, the computer complied.

The ship jolted again, and Emily realized that it was the first such jolt that had woken her up. Her heart pounded somewhere uncomfortably in the vicinity of her throat. Resolutely, she picked up her book and continued to read. _"It was probably Louisa's bout with Typhoid while a nurse during the Civil War that..."_

The room went dark. Emily's heart jumped from her throat into her mouth. "Computer, lights!" she cried in a voice close to panic.

"Normal interior lighting offline," the computer responded.

_Oh God..._ The ship jolted again, more violently this time. Emily's body was frozen in the icy grip of a terror she could not control. She huddled against the wall, certain that something awful would happen to her if she so much as ventured into the center of her well-known quarters. Unbidden, her mind showed her the image of Captain Janeway's haunted, hunted face, only the features changed, melting from the Captain's to Louisa May Alcott's and back again in a way that was almost as horrible as the image itself.

"Oh God..." There were tears in Emily's voice; tears that she could not shed, her body encased in a frozen shell of panic. "Oh God, help me! I can't do this! I can't—"

As suddenly as they had gone off, the lights came back on. Emily's com badge chirped. The small sound terrified her, and she remained frozen in place, sightless eyes staring at the far wall of the room.

"Hogan to Anderson. Emily? Emily, are you alright?"

It took a few moments for Andrew's familiar voice to penetrate the fog of panic. Slowly, Emily raised a trembling hand to tap her com badge. "Yes?" she said, in a voice that was as close to normal as she could make it. "I mean, I'm here. What happened?"

"Didn't you hear the announcement?"

"You mean the one this afternoon? Y-yes, of course I—"

"No, I meant the one forty-five minutes ago when we were ready to enter the Continuum."

"Preparing to—No, I didn't. I was—asleep." But she remembered now, of course. Voyager itself had had to enter the Continuum to rescue Janeway from the hands of enemies of Q's who had been ready to execute them both. Except that was on TV. This was real life, and what if they'd been too late?

"Is the Captain okay?" she demanded, cutting off whatever Andrew had been telling her.

"What?"

"The Captain! Is she all right? And everyone else!"

"Yes, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Commander Chakotay said the mission was successful. I haven't heard anything else, but that has to mean everyone survived, including the Captain. I'll let you know more when I find out. No one's saying anything right now, and I've been relieved—finally. I'm going to the mess hall. Want to join me?"

Emily took stock of her swollen eyes and wet cheeks, the sweat trickling down the bare skin under her shirt, and the sobs that still threatened to break out of her tightly choked-off throat and instinctively shook her head. "No—no, thanks, I'll—see you tomorrow at breakfast."

"You're sure you're okay?"

"Yes, I'm—fine. Just tired. See you tomorrow, all right?"

"Okay, if you say so." Hogan's voice was reluctant. "But be at breakfast or I'll break down your door, understood?"

Emily smiled faintly. It made her face feel like a dry layer of paint that was cracking and flaking away. "Understood, Ensign. Anderson out."

The com link severed, Emily leaned back against the wall and stretched out her cramped legs with a deep, shaking sigh. _Thank God. Thank God. Thank God it worked like TV this time. The Captain's alright. And Harry. And Tom and Chakotay and all the others. Thank God..._

_An insane Q changes Tom Paris and Carl Hogan into Qs. They begin to sabotage the ship. Kes and Tuvok become stranded in the future as old people. Chakotay turns to necromancy and brings Seska back to life. The crew becomes separated. The camera zooms in on Chakotay's distorted, haunted face, as horror music plays..._

Emily jerked awake, heart pounding once again. That dream—was she never going to be able to sleep again? Now as frightened by the recurring nature of the dream as by the images in the dream itself, Emily buried her face in her hands.

She was being watched. She knew it. Someone—or something—with _eyes_ was standing by the door to her quarters staring at her. She was being paranoid, she knew. If she could just unfreeze her panic stricken body enough to look up—to see that her quarters were perfectly normal and completely empty—

Slowly, she forced her hands away from her eyes and with an incredible effort of the will raised her head, her jaw clenched tight with the effort not to let this unreasoning panic take over. No one across the room. No one under her bed. No one—

A glimpse of red caught her peripheral vision from the corner by the door where no red could be. Emily's head froze, and she found that no matter how she tried, she could not compel any part of her body to move. But the red was still there. It looked like a shirt. Attached to black that was certainly a leg covered in the concert black slacks of a Starfleet uniform. Under the leg was a foot clad in a black Starfleet issue shoe.

The form shifted slightly, and as if that movement broke the spell, Emily spun around and came face to face with her worst nightmare.


	18. Dimensional Discussions

Author's Note: _The Q saga continues... And takes a strange twist! Will Emily find her own home again, or…?_

Disclaimer: _Duh.  
_

Dimensional Discussions

"Tsk, tsk." The most powerful being in the known universe clucked and shook his head in mock disapproval. "And I thought all you humans were so courageous. What are you doing cowering on the floor like a whipped puppy?"

This certainly wasn't in the script of her personal horror movie. Emily frowned and scrambled to her feet, attempting to scrub traces of tears from her cheeks as she did so.

"That's better," Q sniffed, "but still not up to Starfleet standards, or I'm much mistaken."

Q presented himself, as he always did on Voyager, as a tall, lean man in a red and black Starfleet uniform. His eyes and hair were dark, his cheekbones prominent, and his nose long and aquiline. Emily supposed he was handsome, in a rugged, arrogant sort of way.

"That's—not surprising," she answered neutrally, shocked to find that her voice worked. "I'm new on Voyager."

"Hmph. Late 20th or early 21st century Earth—sometime before the MCS epidemic, anyway," Q muttered, surveying her as one might an interesting bug. "Though how you got here… Wait a minute, I don't know you!"

This last was a protest of disbelief that was quite out of character, and Emily glanced up, startled, to meet the alien's gaze. He was staring at her with a kind of revulsion. "You shouldn't _be_," he continued in an outraged tone. "You shouldn't exist at all!"

A new terror filled Emily at these inexplicable words, but _this_ was reality, and she could deal with _that._ Quickly, she did what she should have done to begin with and slapped her com badge. "Anderson to Janeway," she said, her voice shaking. "Intruder alert in my quarters. It's Q."

"Intruder alert, indeed, Kathy," Q added, not even bothering to slap his own com badge. "What is this—this—_alien_—doing on your ship?"

"I don't understand you, Q." Exhaustion was evident in Captain Janeway's voice as she answered them. "Emily is human just as we are. She's from Earth about four hundred years in our past."

"She is _not_ and you know it, Kathy. This bundle of matter does not belong in this universe at all, and it must be removed immediately."

"Captain—" Emily's throat closed.

"On my way." Captain Janeway's voice was grim.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly."

The Captain was standing in the center of the room, hands on her hips, glaring at Q. Her instinctive authority was diminished not at all by the weariness evident in her face. Chakotay and B'Elanna flanked her, both looking equally tired.Emily leaned against the wall where she stood, trembling despite her best efforts to appear calm.

"What we have here is a theory that has never been proven," the Captain continued. "The Continuum's argument is that if matter—such as a human being—were to come from one dimension into another—as Emily has—it would cause a spatial-temporal vacuum in the dimension it leaves—hers—and upset the balance of space/time in the dimension it enters—ours. Correct?"

Q sniffed. "Simplistic, of course, but yes."

"But you can't tell us that this will happen for certain," Chakotay put in. "Right?"

"Of course not. No one has ever been stupid enough to try it. Even the Continuum won't risk the destruction of the universe as we know it."

B'Elanna snorted. "I'd say you were doing a pretty good job of it there a while ago."

Q ignored her. "This matter can't stay here," he said. "It must be obliterated, or it will permanently damage the universe."

"I will not allow you to harm anyone on this ship on the basis of an unproven theory." The Captain's rock-hard voice projected an absolute authority that belied her powerlessness to enforce her order.

"Oh come now, Kathy," Q said persuasively. "It isn't as though she's one of your own."

"She most certainly _is!_" The outrage in the Captain's voice was audible. Emily stood a little straighter.

"I thought you'd see it that way," Q's voice was resigned and just a shade indulgent. "Well, there _is_ another way—"

"Wait a minute," B'Elanna interrupted. "To me your whole theory just doesn't seem very likely. Emily's been here for over half a year and the fabric of space/time seems fine to me. I ran every diagnostic I could think of when she first arrived, and there was nothing at all amiss."

Emily raised her hand timidly, as if in school. "Um—" she said, when the Captain looked at her, "I'm a very small piece of matter. Maybe it doesn't seem like there's a problem because the universe is so big it'll take a long time for me to affect it."

"Exactly," Q nodded. "To you, with your limited perception of time, it will take a long time for anything damaging to happen because of the presence of excess matter. Probably billions of your years. I, however, can feel the disturbing vibrations already."

"Then I guess I _shouldn't_ be here."

B'Elanna rounded on her fiercely. "What's wrong with you? You're arguing for your own destruction!"

Emily shrank back against the wall again, closing her eyes against the tears that stung them.

"B'Elanna." The Captain's voice was quelling.

"I—I didn't mean that," Emily said in a shaking voice. "If—if it's okay, maybe Q could tell us about the 'other way' he mentioned."

Q assumed the self-important air of a university professor about to expound on his pet theory. "Of course, by far the easiest method of dealing with this would be to simply obliterate the excess matter altogether—" he raised a hand for silence as three of the four humans in the room opened their mouths to protest. "But being possessed of some imagination, I can see that it would be hard for you to view a member of your own species—however pitiful a specimen—as mere excess matter to be disposed of."

Janeway glared at the omnipotent being, but remained silent. Emily hung her head, oppressively aware of her tear-streaked face, and of the stale smell of her own sweat that permeated the small room.

"Therefore, I propose an alternate solution," Q continued. "We simply—" he paused for dramatic effect— "send her back to her own dimension!"

The humans in the room stood for a moment in stunned silence. Emily swallowed hard.

"Don't tell me it's really as simple as that," B'Elanna said skeptically.

"Certainly," Q promised exuberantly. "Mind you, I can't guarantee the time frame she'll end up in. It's very imprecise, and this will after all be the first time anyone—even in the Continuum—has experimented with dimensional control. It will be a breakthrough! My very own! Something to tell my grandchildren about!"

"You've never done this before," B'Elanna said flatly. "I knew there was a catch."

"Don't worry," he said unconcernedly, "It will be, as you quaintly put it, easy as pie. There is almost no danger to her involved."

"Absolutely not." The Captain's voice was firm. "If you've never tried this before, anything could go wrong. Emily could lose her life."

"Don't be silly, Kathy," Q remonstrated. "You can't value one human life over the life of the universe at large, can you? I thought one of the maxims you humans live by is that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one."

"You haven't proved to me that your theory is even correct!" Janeway retorted furiously. "You can't expect me to allow you to sacrifice one of my crew for it!"

"I'm sorry, Kathy. Someone has to take the long view here."

"Q!" the Captain barked, so fiercely that even Q jumped. "I am still in command of this ship. Leave her alone! That's an order!"

"With all due respect, Kathy, you can't tell me what to do."

Q raised his hand to snap his fingers, but this time Emily's quavering voice arrested him. "Q? Please, wait—could I— Since I've been here this long, will another hour or so matter that much? If I could, there are—people—I'd like to say goodbye to."

The being lowered his hand and looked at her. On his face was the first hint of compassion Emily had seen him show. "I suppose that's acceptable," he said. "I'll come back in two hours." And with a sudden flash of brilliant white light, he was gone.

The silence in the room was deafening and prolonged. Finally, Emily looked at the Captain. "Could I—see Harry before I go?" she asked, tears spilling down her cheeks in spite of her valiant effort not to cry. "And—Tom and Andrew and John, and Kes and Neelix and the Doctor?"

------------------------------------------------------------

Half an hour later, Emily slipped out of the bathroom, rather self-consciously adjusting the jacket of the brand new green and black Starfleet uniform Captain Janeway had replicated for her to wear. "We don't know where or when you're going to appear in your dimension," she had told her young crewmember. "If you appear in your own time, you'll just be taken for a—a fan?" At Emily's nod, she continued. "And if you appear in any other century, appearance in uniform as an official representative of Starfleet might help you."

"Or else I'll be just as funny-looking to them as I would be in anything else," Emily had responded with a faint smile, equanimity somewhat tenuously restored by twenty minutes quiet conversation with the Captain.

As she stepped into her quarters, Emily was greeted by a handful of people's quiet applause. Harry, John, Andrew, Tom and Neelix grinned their approval, the Doctor looked her up and down appraisingly, and Kes smiled and said gently, "A healer's colors."

Startled, Emily looked down at her front, then back into the Occampa's warm eyes. "I guess…"

"It's entirely appropriate," the Doctor pronounced, fully as if he were the only authority whose opinion mattered. Emily grinned.

"I'm going to miss you all," she said softly, then, gazing at the faces before her.

Harry was smiling gallantly, but his eyes were bright, and as she hugged him, he choked into her ear, "Take care of yourself."

"I will. You too," she murmured back.

"I can't believe this is happening," muttered the first voice she'd ever heard on Voyager. "Damned Q. I wish we could do something."

"Maybe it's for the best, John," Emily told him, moving back to hold onto his arms and look into his dark eyes. "If I really am a danger to this dimension, I can't stay."

"But it could just be one of his stupid tricks," Andrew protested as he wrapped his arms tightly around her in his turn. "And if it is, how do we get you back?"

Emily hugged him just as tightly. "We trust the Captain to think of something."

"What if she can't?" his voice was ragged as he moved back and cupped her face in his two hands. "I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you."

Emily put her hands gently over his, blinking back her own tears. "Nor I, if it weren't for you," she whispered.

"I think someone ought to go with you, to protect you," Tom said, lifting her clear off her feet when his turn for a hug came.

"Right," she said. "So we can upset the balance of space/time the other way. Thanks for the thought, though," she finished softly. He smiled and moved back.

"We _won't_ let you go!" Neelix insisted, his arms around her gripping her tightly. "We _won't_!" The tears in his eyes belied his fierce words as he stepped away.

Kes, her eyes glowing, reached out and placed her hands lightly on Emily's cheeks. Warmth unlike anything Emily had ever felt filled her mind as the tiny Occampa used her strange mental powers to give her love and support. Trying to project her own thanks and love as best she could, Emily hugged her.

"Emily."

"Doctor."

They embraced wordlessly.

Emily stepped back then to survey her friends. She had never stopped longing for her home and family, but, knowing it was impossible to go back, she had never seriously considered leaving these people who were almost as dear to her. Now, faced with abandoning them for an uncertain time and place in her own dimension, Emily realized she would give almost anything to stay with her new family on Voyager.

As she stood there, trying helplessly to think of words to say that she would never be able to force around the lump in her throat, the door chime rang.

"Come—"

She choked, and the 'in' went unsaid.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"All right," Q said, fastening a new com badge to Emily's uniform and handing another one to the Captain. "This is how we'll do this. I will send her back to her own dimension, as close to the time she left as I can. After she has gone, Kathy, you will try to contact her via your com link. These com badges are spatial/temporal communicators, but they won't work across dimensions, so if all goes well, you won't be able to reach her."

"But if she's still in our dimension, we'll know, and you'll be able to bring her back here."

"Precisely."

"No matter where or when she is?" Chakotay's voice held a world of distrust.

"Well, yes, generally speaking."

"What do you mean?" Janeway's voice was flinty.

"There could be some interference, but I'll do the best I can, Kathy," Q said impatiently. "I've never done this before, remember?"

B'Elanna snorted. "Oh. Right. We'd forgotten."

Q glared. "I don't find you amusing. Go away." He snapped his fingers, and Voyager's Chief Engineer vanished.

"What did you do to her?" Tom's voice was slightly panicky.

"Relax. I sent her back to her beloved warp core. If she knows what's good for her, she'll stay there. Now let's get on with this. You," he gestured peremptorily at Emily. "Come here."

Still a little trembly, but otherwise calm, Emily stepped forward, slinging the Starfleet issue knapsack the Captain had given her over her shoulder. It held her journal, a medical kit, and emergency rations.

"Is your tricorder ready?" Chakotay asked her.

"Yes, Commander." Emily gestured with the instrument in her hand.

"Good. When the Captain contacts you, if she reaches you, we're going to want to know your spatial and temporal location. You know how to find those coordinates?"

"Yes, sir."

He nodded, satisfied. "Good luck, Emily," he said gravely.

Emily nodded, unable to speak around the lump in her throat, then turned to Q. "I'm ready."


	19. Another Civil War

Author's Note: _I'm sorry it's been so long between updates! I'm living at a Catholic Worker house now (see which keeps me extremely busy with Real Life. THANK YOU to all of you who read and review on a regular basis! Never doubt that I will continue updating this story. (By the way, some of you who've hazarded guesses about the plotline have come very close in some areas... grin I will say no more.) _

Extra Note: _If this chapter bores Voyager purists, I'm sorry. Captain Janeway got to meet her historical heroine, so it seemed only fair to give Emily the same chance! Don't worry, she won't be there forever._

Disclaimer: _If you can't tell which characters belong to Paramount et al, which are my own creations, and which are historical figures, please go find something else to read. _

Another Civil War

It was very hard to be prepared for anything, Emily discovered, as the omnipotent being in front of her raised his hand. Time was doing funny things. Her two hours had sped by so fast they were a blur.

_Did I even say goodbye to my friends? _She panicked for a moment before a vaguely confused memory of their shining, tear-filled eyes presented itself to her mind. John, Andrew, Harry, Neelix, Kes, the Doctor... Yes, she remembered.

Q's arm continued to rise, and in this one everlasting last moment Emily looked beyond him to the faces behind. They were all familiar now, and infinitely more real at this moment than the family she hoped she was returning to. Tom held his head high, but his face was pale. Harry braced himself as if for a blow, and bit his lips to keep them steady. Commander Chakotay was looking at her, his clear gaze reassuring. Captain Janeway's face was set, but when Emily met her eyes her lips quirked in the familiar half smile.

A sudden flash of blinding white light obscured both words and people. As it intensified and engulfed her, it filled her with a strange pain that was like nothing she had ever experienced. Fragmented images and emotions sped through her awareness. The depth of care in the Captain's eyes…tears brimming in Harry's…a beautiful painting on the wall of a shabby dorm room...stars flashing past at warp speed…jaws of a land eel opening from a TV screen…awe…fear…pain…loneliness…ugly sickbay ceiling…Szymborska's haunting _Suite for Clarinet_…blazing light of a supernova…a bowl of black, wiggling things…Louisa May Alcott's life through the eyes of a 23rd Century doctoral student…

Emily's last thought before the pain overcame her was, _I wonder what Louisa May Alcott would make of _this?

There was nothing but white light.

_This certainly feels familiar, _was her first wry thought when coherent thought was possible. But—God in heaven, it hadn't _hurt_ like this last time! Though she wasn't sure 'hurt' was the right word. White-hot light seared her, but she was not truly aware of her body, nor did she think, or feel emotion.

Gradually her senses re-awoke. She couldn't say how long it took. She wasn't even sure anymore that time was a relevant measure of experience. Slowly, however, she found that she could feel her hands—one clutching a tricorder, the other a knapsack—and her feet—resting firmly on something solid. She felt her eyes open, but saw only white, so the first thing she noticed about her new surroundings was the smell. The place—whatever it was—_reeked._ Smoke, blood, mildew, urine, and even some feces filled the musty air, mixed with the sharp, acrid smell of carbolic and vinegar.

After a few seconds, a small, dingy staircase swam into view. She was standing on the fifth step. It was dark. The light coming in the few windows in the large room below her was grey and dim. Dawn light. A single candle burned on a table some twenty feet from where she stood, and in a chair next to it a woman sat, snoring softly. The rest of the room was filled with cots on which men tossed and turned feebly in various stages of wakefulness, sleep, or drugged unconsciousness. _A hospital?_

Emily punched up the coordinates on her tricorder that would tell her where—and when—she was. _Definitely not Kansas, Toto, _she thought a bit wildly, aware how close to hysteria she was. Her hands shook, as, indeed, did her entire body. Her very bones ached, as if she had the flu several hundred times over, and her head was spinning.

The tricorder beeped, but before she could acquire any useful data, hurried footsteps above her warned of someone approaching. A split second later that someone collided with her, and a sharp, female voice said impatiently, "Get out of the way, you stupid boy!"

Emily spun around, lost her footing, tumbled backwards down the staircase, landed on the cold wooden floor with a thud, and lay there, stunned.

"Oh my God, are you hurt?" the woman hurried down the stairs with a great rustling of skirts and petticoats. "But—you're not—Who are _you_?"

Her brain muddled from her fall, Emily clutched her tricorder and knapsack, scrambled to her feet, and did the only thing she could think of—took off to her right and hit the door running.

The door stuck a little, and the impact was enough to stun her anew. She reeled outdoors, head spinning, slipped, stumbled, and realized the pain in her back was preventing her from running. Also that it was snowing and bitterly cold. And that someone was following her. She staggered to the wall and leaned against it, to face the woman who strode toward her.

"Who _are_ you?" she demanded again. She stopped not a foot away and stood there, arms folded, glaring, and Emily stared at her in growing horror. She knew that face. The determined, slightly square jaw, the firmly set mouth and direct brown eyes had last looked at her from the pages of a 23rd Century doctoral dissertation. The face was unmistakably that of Louisa May Alcott.

"Um—" Emily groped helplessly after an appropriate response. "My—my name is Emily. Emily Anderson."

The woman's frown deepened. "A woman? What sort of game are you playing?"

Emily flashed before her own vision as Louisa May Alcott must see her: tall for this time period, and muscular now from her Starfleet defensive training, in form-fitting uniform jacket and slacks, hair pulled back into a simple braid down her back. It was easy to understand how she'd been mistaken for a man.

"You are a woman," the apparition said, her gaze narrowing. "And a young one. What are you doing here, dressed like that? This is a hospital, not a playground, and you are certainly old enough to have some sense."

Emily choked a laugh at that, and looked down at her snow covered boots. "Yes, you are right," she conceded, struggling to fit her meaning into the slightly more formal language of the 19th Century. "I am sorry. I'm—not from around here—I've never been her before—and I would offer to leave but I—seem to have injured myself falling, and I—I'm lost."

"Is that what they wear where you come from?" the authoress asked sardonically. Luckily she didn't appear to expect a reply. "Come back inside. It's freezing out here, and we neither of us have on coat or hat."

Climbing the stairs took all of Emily's remaining concentration. She gripped the rail tightly, concealing the pain every step cost her. The woman unlocked a small brown door at the end of a dank hall and they stepped into a tiny box of a room. A small cot, a rickety desk, a wash stand, and an old wardrobe were the only furnishings. The walls and floor were bare. Without looking at Emily, Louisa May Alcott crossed to the wardrobe and pulled out a dark nurse's uniform similar to her own; shabby, but clean.

"You can't wear that getup," she said, turning abruptly and holding out the bulky dress. "Put this on, and stay here. I must open up my ward, then I'll come back with some brandy and liniment." She crossed to the door, then turned on the threshold. "Don't rob me." A small, sarcastic smile crossed her face briefly. "I can assure you that whatever you take will disappoint you greatly in its lack of value or beauty of any kind."

The door closed behind her.

Emily stared, bemused, after the breathing, talking form of her childhood heroine. The sheer force of her personality was something no picture—however well restored by 23rd Century technology—could have prepared her for. A sharp pain in her back reminded her that she had work to do. Quickly she stripped off her jacket, shirt and undershirt, folded them and laid them on the bed. Then she pulled the med kit out of her knapsack and removed the dermal regenerator, which she activated and used on her abused back. The pain ceased immediately.

Sighing with profound relief, Emily replaced the med kit and packed her clothes in on top of it. After a moment's thought, aware that she was painfully deficient in the underwear department, she decided to leave the slacks on. She rolled the pant legs up a bit so they wouldn't show beneath the skirt, then struggled into the stiff, woolen dress. It scratched, so she took it off, put her Starfleet undershirt and shirt back on, then struggled into the massive grey thing again. Her pale face in the warped mirror over the wash stand smiled slightly as she surveyed herself. _I look like I've been through a war. _

That initial thought was followed swiftly by a the rather startled realization that she had. The panicked girl cowering in her darkened quarters during Voyager's involvement in the Q civil war seemed a different person entirely, and very far away. _Funny. Out of one civil war and right into another one. And Voyager hasn't contacted me, so I must be in the right dimension. _The smile faded from her face at this unwelcome thought, and she was glad to turn around and face her hostess as she reentered the room.

"Here," Louisa gave her a small tin cup half full of what smelled like cheap brandy. "We appear to be without liniment until this afternoon when the resupply wagon arrives. I'm sorry."

Emily was still shivering, and she gulped the brandy gratefully. "That's alright," she offered. "I feel better now that I'm warmer."

"You must be cold if this room seems warm." The brief, ironic smile crossed the author's face again, over her concerned expression. "Were you outside all night long?"

Seizing on the explanation, Emily nodded. "I—I came in on the train—from out west—Arizona. I don't know anyone here, so I didn't know where to go."

"Why come here if you have no friends or relatives to look after you?"

Emily shrugged, allowing some of the forlornness she felt to creep into her posture. "I didn't know what else to do. We were on our way to my brother's claim when he was—killed by outlaws. I hid, afraid of what they would do to me if they found me. A woman alone is never safe in the hands of men like those."

Emily glanced up quickly, wondering if she had overdone it. Louisa's eyes were wide, but a little skeptical. "Why did they kill your brother?"

"For his gold. He thought he'd struck it rich. I guess I'll never know now. I—after they had gone I—took his clothes. I'm tall enough to pass as a man if folks don't look at me too closely. My only thought was to get back to civilized country, where outlaws with guns don't kill honest, decent, hardworking men…" she allowed her voice to trail off, and kept her eyes studiously on the stained and ugly floor. _I can't tell if she's buying any of this._

There was a long pause. Then Louisa said finally, "I must tell you that I've never seen an outfit like that on even the wildest westerner, but if true, your experience has been a terrible one and I'm sorry. I'm Louisa Alcott, and you're at the Union Hotel Hospital."

Sympathy was plain on the older woman's face now, and Emily stifled both a sigh of relief and a twinge of guilt as she shook the writer's proffered hand. "Thanks."

"There's work for you here, if you want it," Louisa went on briskly. "Good nurses are always needed, and I'll vouch for you. Mind, the work is hard, and heartbreaking, and at times disgusting, but for someone who has been living the life you have it might suit better than going into service or taking in sewing. Unless you'd care to pursue the stage."

The last sentence had an ironic twang to it, and Emily remembered reading that in this society an actress was almost synonymous with a whore—and that Louisa May Alcott had always harbored a fascination for the profession. She looked up to find those direct, keen eyes studying her with alarming perspicuity. _Yikes. She sure doesn't miss much. _

The woman's face softened. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen. Nearly eighteen," Emily said, "and you are right. I've lived alone with my brother since I was five years old, and I'm afraid my skill in the homely arts extends just to the keeping of a bachelor's pad and no further."

Louisa smiled, a warmer smile this time, amused but devoid of irony. "You will make someone a very poor wife someday. But," and now she turned serious, "you just may make a very good nurse. Have you steady hands and eyes, and can you stand the sight and smell of blood and ugly wounds?"

"Yes." Emily replied unequivocally. After all, it could hardly be worse than some of the things she'd seen on Voyager.

Which just proved how wrong she could be.

Emily swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat and tipped her head sideways to wipe the sweat trickling down her forehead on her rough woolen shoulder, taking care not to jostle either of her two hands, which were steadily stitching up the gaping wound in a young man's thigh. He gripped the hand of the nurse next to her so tightly that Emily knew he would leave bruises. They had run out of anesthetic. Again. Though Doctor Fitz Patrick swore he had put the order in on time.

Emily spared a glance at her fellow nurse. The older woman's eyes flashed reassuringly, though her mouth was set, her lips white and pinched. The wounded soldier was exerting a fearful grip on her hand. Emily tried to work quickly for both their sakes. _Where is that worthless doctor?_

She had never sewn a man's flesh together before, but she had read about it in one of the padds the Doctor had given her and thus was familiar with the technique, which was more than any of the other nurses could say for themselves. Emily had been shocked to find that the women who came to nurse were but sketchily trained in the most basic performance of their duties—most of which involved fetching and carrying, administering doses, sewing bandages, keeping the soldiers as comfortable as possible in the pestilence-ridden room, and watching helplessly as drunken Dr. Fitz Patrick mangled his surgical patients.

It was this last that had driven Emily to try her hand at needle and thread today, for the inebriated doctor had nearly cut the arm off his last patient while removing a bullet and then had disappeared, leaving three soldiers just in from the front untreated, wounds hastily bound up in blood-soaked and dirty bandages.

_Damn his flea-bitten hide! _Emily thought viciously, casting another swift glance, this time behind her, as she sewed. This was not the job of a nurse, and if caught at it, she and Louisa would both be severely reprimanded. She had already set a broken wrist—she hoped she had done it right, again her knowledge was purely theoretical—, cleaned and bandaged numerous cuts and scrapes, and diagnosed another patient with severe internal bleeding and ordered a mixture of herbs to ease his pain and help his body heal. This man was the last, and as a small groan escaped his white lips, Emily returned her full concentration to her task.

When she was done, she pulled her blood-soaked and suddenly shaking hands away and watched, dizzy with relief, as Louisa carefully sponged the blood from the man's legs and tucked the blankets around him. He opened his eyes to meet theirs each in turn. "Thankee," he muttered, weakly, but with obvious sincerity.

"If anyone asks, a doctor sewed you up," Emily told him, and he nodded and shut his eyes.

Louisa turned from the bed, took the younger nurse by the elbow and guided her to the wash basin. She poured water from the ewer, then took the kettle from the little pot-belly stove in the corner and added boiling water. "You did well," she said quietly, taking Emily by the wrists and plunging both their hands into the warm water.

Emily nodded faintly and used soap and water copiously, then watched again as Louisa emptied the basin out the open window. She was shivering now in her sweat-soaked dress, so tired she could not think what to do next. Each day of the past two weeks had been like this to varying degrees, and Emily felt alternately very young and desperate to keep up with people with far more experience and endurance than she, and very old and desperate with suppressed rage at their ignorance and seeming carelessness. She had little time to think of Voyager and her friends there, except to find her new life distinctly wanting in comparison. She missed the cleanness, both of her surroundings and of the people she had worked with, the clarity of their motives, the caring and competent leadership of their Captain.

_The Doctor should see _thisshe thought with ragged humor as she followed Louisa to get sponges and pails, clean sheets and night dresses. The patients with fevers sweated continually, and unless they were wiped down and their sheets changed often they shivered in the icy drafts that came in the open windows. _Stone knives and bearskins in very deed._ But in this place it was hard to believe that the Doctor and Voyager's pristine sickbay had ever existed—or for that matter ever would.

"I found Dr. Fitz Patrick," Louisa told her some time later, running up from the laundry laden with fresh linen, a curious twitching around the corners of her mouth betraying the mirth her serious face belied.

"Where?" Emily relieved her of half her burden and they walked back down the hall toward their ward.

"Lying among the soiled bedclothes with a half-empty bottle, serenading the laundresses."

Emily gave a small snort of mirth. "Bet they love that." Louisa gave her a puzzled look and Emily rephrased herself quickly. "The laundresses. I suppose they appreciated his gift of song."

Louisa smiled wanly and suppressed a cough. "I wouldn't think so. They don't complain, of course, and neither should we. He is a kind man, and a good doctor."

"When he's sober." Emily's words were sharper than she intended, but she couldn't help contrasting Dr. Fitz Patrick's lackadaisical air with the Doctor's crisp competence.

Louisa gave her another odd look, but only said mildly, "Still, he is a doctor, and our superior, and as such he deserves our respect."

_Like hell,_ Emily thought bitterly, but she knew better than to say that aloud.

She shivered as she clumsily pulled clean cotton over the painfully emaciated body of a fevered soldier, and wished she could change her own clothes. She longed for her Starfleet uniform. The heavy wool dress hampered her movement, irritated her skin, and didn't breathe at all. She was either stifling or freezing, and she still hadn't learned how to walk quickly without tripping over it, never mind run.

Her clumsiness in female dress never failed to amuse her ally and mentor. Louisa snickered up her sleeve every time Emily humiliated herself in front of everyone— tripping over her dress while running down the stairs with a full chamber pot and sprawling ignominiously on her back in the middle of the ward, for instance—and laughed in Emily's face when she insisted, in an embarrassingly seventeen-year-old whine, that it wasn't funny. But Louisa always helped her right her mistakes, even when it meant extra work in addition to her own full load, and at least ten times a day a whispered hint, or even a look, saved Emily from serious errors or breaches in social etiquette.

Their relationship was a complex one. The hospital administration had apparently decided that since Louisa had vouched for Emily, she would naturally be her mentor and protector as well. Emily had been summarily installed as Louisa's room mate, and was placed in her ward as a sort of assistant. Louisa's response to this seemed to vary with her mood. Most of the time she seemed happy for the companionship, and was a vibrant and expansive companion under the most trying of circumstances. But sometimes she seemed to resent the loss of her space, and ushered Emily through her duties with a kind of forced pleasantness Emily found rather painful.

It was this latter attitude that greeted Dr. Fitzpatrick when he emerged from the cellar stairs at the end of their shift and stumbled through his final rounds. He had missed the scrambling hurry of dinner on the ward, and the short, relatively quiet time that followed, when the ward settled down for the night and Louisa struggled to teach Emily to sew bandages. The two nurses administered last doses of medicine to those that needed them, then bade patients and doctor goodnight and gratefully climbed the stairs to bed.

Emily shivered under the tattered blankets that covered her small cot, and sneezed several times. Everything here seemed to be made of wool, and she discovered she was allergic to the stuff. She rubbed her cold nose vigorously with the back of her hand, sneezed again, pulled the hated covers up over her head, and curled up into the tightest ball she could to conserve her rapidly falling body heat. She _hated_ being cold.

Clenching her teeth, she fought back tears and listened to the quiet sounds of night at the Union Hospital. A tree branch creaked against their window. The muffled footsteps and muted voices of the night nurses settling to their work drifted up from the wards below, as did the occasional groan or cry of a soldier overcome by pain or awakening from a nightmare. Louisa's dry, rattling cough sounded with uneasy regularity from the bed next to her. Emily frowned. Louisa concealed the cough well enough in the daytime, but at night it betrayed her, shaking her thin, angular body under the bedclothes while she slept fitfully. Emily closed her eyes, trying to push thoughts of pneumonia and typhoid from her tired mind. Finally she slept.

Their work was changed to night watching, or half night and half day, from twelve noon to twelve midnight. Louisa liked this because it left her time in the mornings to go for her daily run. She insisted in going out in all weathers, trotting up and down the streets in all directions, sometimes to the Heights, others, half way to Washington. Emily agreed that the fresh air would do her good, but she was secretly dubious about the effect of such strenuous exercise on top of all their work. Louisa's condition was deteriorating rapidly, and Emily knew the bout of typhoid she had read about could not be far off.

Odd, sentimental Dr. John Winslow replaced Dr. Fitz Patrick on their ward, much to Emily's relief—until she realized that he wasn't much more skilled than his predecessor, and that what she had mistaken for drunken incompetence was really little more than the entire time period's lack of knowledge and skill. This depressed her, and she fumed and fretted with impatience while he bungled procedures that looked incredibly simple to her.

"You should become a doctor," Louisa told her in their room at night, some three weeks after Emily's arrival. A fit of coughing so violent it turned to retching followed her words, and Emily gave her a worried glance and fetched a tablespoon of cough syrup from the bottle in the corner. Louisa shook her head and gestured it away.

"Take it, or I'll knock you down and pour it down your throat."

The older woman laughed. "You would do it, wouldn't you? I've never known anyone like you. You _should_ be a doctor. Do it and I'll write a splendid novel about your life: Woman from the wild west becomes world famous physician."

"You're distracting me. Swallow."

Louisa swallowed, but continued, "I'm serious, Emily. You ought to do_ something_ with your energy anyway—other than fret yourself into a fury at what you see wrong with others' work."

Emily smiled ruefully at this assessment, and owned that her friend was right.

That night, as she lay shivering and listening to Louisa's ragged breathing, a little light seemed to shine at the end of the dark tunnel she lived in. Maybe she _could_ become a doctor. It wasn't a usual profession for a woman in the 19th Century, but it could be done. She would have to take care not to betray or use her advanced knowledge of medicine, but then again, without the advanced technology to make the serums, regenerators, and other devices, her knowledge of them was well nigh useless anyway. She could make herself forget about the med kit in the knapsack under her cot unless she herself were ill. At least, she hoped she could.

She sighed and fingered her Starfleet com badge. She had strung it on the chainabout her neck with the small silver cross her godmother had given her when she was thirteen. They struck her as singularly appropriate, strung side by side in this cold, dark place; both symbols of hopeinthis shabby hospital in which ill-trained women struggled to tend both souls and bodies of the boys and young men who had been sent to kill and be killed by their brothers. Symbols of faith that this was not all there was tohuman existence.

Her fingers strayed to the cross. She had never prayed on Voyager. Somehow faith in an omnipotent God had seemed childish and backward on a starship speeding through unknown galaxies. Here she prayed almost constantly. It was often all she could do for the boys in the ward, who grasped her hands painfully and choked out their sins to her, the only confessor they were likely to see; who cried with unbearable pain, and then cried the more for showing weakness they had been taught was unmanly, until Louisa turned away, torn between pity and disgust, and Emily nearly cried herself; who died in agony while Emily watched helplessly and tried not to think of the single dose of antibiotic that would cure them if she broke faith with Voyager.

Praying was all she could do for Louisa too. Like her "boys", the writerwas too proud to admit to exhaustion and illness, much less to the despair Emilysometimes saw lurking in her eyes. Her life was not and never would be an easy one, Emily knew, and interacting with her was like walking through a mine field. Much as she longed to, she dared not counsel or cheer her friend too much, encourage too close an intimacy, or even urge her too forcefully to take care for her physical health; for who knew what Louisa May Alcott would write—or even if she _would_ write—if she were not plagued by depression, loneliness, and the after-effects of typhoid and the barbarous treatment methods she would be subjected to.

Perhaps she would write something truly great, if her spirit could be so unfettered. There was genius locked in her soulEmily now knew first handbut it expressed itself only partially, at times awkwardly, in her writing; breaking out brilliantly in places where it was least likely to be appreciated, and hiding beneath platitudes and stock phrases just when it would have been most welcome. It was as if the writer stumbled over something within herself that hindered her and rendered her unable to express herself fully, in art or in life.

Who knew what brilliant works she might create if Emily could break through that barrier, as Louisa at times almost seemed to be inviting her to do? Was it worth the risk? Emily often thought rebelliously that it was, and sometimes, when one of her friend's brilliant thoughts or unlooked-for kindnesses touched her deeply, she was even tempted not to care.

It was a cold afternoon in mid-January when Mrs. Ropes, the matron of the hospital, finally noticed the seriousness of the pneumonia Louisa tried to hide and ordered her to bed. Emily followed to try to make her comfortable before the shift she would now work alone started.

"Someone ought to order Mrs. Ropes to her room too." There was that inEmily's voice that would have reminded anyone on Voyager of the Doctor at his most irritable. "She's dying, you know."

"Everyone knows," Louisa responded miserably, sinking down on her bed with relief and taking a dose of cough syrup without demur, which proved how ill she really was. "I wonder if I shall die here too?" She caught herself in hand a second later and added briskly, "Don't mind me. The rain makes me blue."

Emily almost responded; almost told her that it was alright to be sad and discouraged, and that she was not a coward to admit simple human weakness. But she didn't. She only knelt to remove Louisa's shoes with unusual gentleness and silently damnedthe Prime Directive in language that would have scandalized her friend if she had heard it. Aloud she said only, "Get into bed. You can borrow my blankets tonight to keep you warmer. Would you like to read?"

Louisa nodded. Emily handed her a battered and dog-eared volume of Dickens, which Louisa took but did not open. Instead she watched listlessly as Emily splashed water on her face and viciously repinned her hair.

"When I was young," Louisa said, so suddenly that Emily was startled into meeting her eyes in the mirror, "I wanted to do something splendid; something that would be remembered after I died. I don't suppose I ever really will. It's been a long time since I've thought of it."

It was an overture—an offer. The eyes staring at her in the mirror had never been so open, or so vulnerable. Words of hope, of encouragement, of friendship, sprang to Emily's lips and trembled there. The temptation to speak them had never been so violent.

But suddenly she remembered reading _Little Women_ for the first time at the age of eight. She had taken the ethical precepts deeply to heart—re-read the book constantly—even memorized passages. Her mother had laughed at her and jokingly called it "her Bible," which really had not been far from the truth. Certainly Louisa's ethics had shaped her moral character long before the real Bible had ever entered the picture. She didn't even know who she would _be _had she not read that book.

That was splendid. To have that kind of effect on the life of a young girl in a future so far distant that she couldn't even conceive it; to be remembered not only after she died, but for over five centuries; to be such a powerful influence on so many young persons—

Emily stared into the eyes in the mirror, almost hypnotized. _I wouldn't have had the moral courage to live on Voyager if it weren't for this woman_, she thought, amazed._ She's overlooked by historians because she wrote for children, but children grow up, and I wonder how many lives she's affected as she has mine? She would be terrified if I were to tell her the influence she'll have on the future._

_I can't mess with that. I can't jeopardize it by contaminating her mind with ethical ideas from a future she helped create. And she wouldn't want me to, if she knew all the facts. She wouldn't want the future to be so much poorer just so she could have a happy life. At least, I hope she wouldn't. She gets to do something splendid, but the price she has to pay is that she will never know it. That's the deal._

Slowly, she turned to face the thin, pale woman who seemed suddenly to have grown so much larger. She moved to the side of thebed, took the author's cold hands in her own, and said carefully, "You should rest, Louisa. Sleep if you can. And maybe you ought to think about going home, before you get worse."

Louisa's eyes flashed with sudden hurt. She shut them, nodding spiritlessly,and when sheopened them again they exuded that forced pleasantness Emily hated.

Emily got up and left the room, pretending not to see. She had work to do.


	20. Omega

Author's Note: _Here's the update everyone was clamoring for, until you all gave up hope and decided that I probably disappeared into Real Life for good. I hope it lives up to expectation! Omega's name was supposed to be the Greek Omega symbol, by the way, but I couldn't get it to translate into HTML properly. Emjoy!_

Disclaimer: _I made up most of this, but Voyager is still Paramount's, in case anyone's forgotten._

Omega

"Wakey, wakey…" The voice was lilting, teasing, and accompanied by the application of the tip of a feather just inside her ear.

Captain Amandine Finn groaned and pulled the covers up over her head. "Leanne, that is _not_ funny!"

The sheets were pulled back, and the feather brushed her ear again. "Come on, Mandy. Up and at 'em!"

_Wait a minute…_ Amandine opened one eye. That was not her lover's voice. Leanne _never _called her Mandy. And besides—she opened her other eye—she was on a deep space mission and Leanne was safely back on earth studying microbial volcanic life forms. Besides that, there was only one being in the universe who called Captain Amandine Finn "Mandy" in quite that irritating, condescending tone of voice.

Resisting the urge to close her eyes and pray it was a dream, Captain Finn turned and sat up. "Omega. What can I do for you."

The dazzling beauty of the tall, blonde woman seated on the edge of Amandine's bed was marred only slightly by her wicked green eyes, long, aquiline nose, and arrogant bearing. Although she appeared human, down to the crimson Explorer's Guild uniform she wore, Amandine knew that this was only the form the omnipotent being chose to adopt when she dealt with humans.

And that she usually only dealt with humans when she was looking for entertainment.

And that said entertainment usually involved tossing the humans into some particularly horrendous situation just to see what they would do.

"Make yourself presentable and come along, Mandy,"Omega said. Her smugly superior tone made Amandine horribly aware of her tangled hair, sleep crusted eyes, and tattered nightdress. "Someone wants to talk to you."

Amandine lurched to her feet. _Dammit, I am still captain of this ship, even if I am in the worn out nighty I wear because Leanne gave it to me the night we were married._

"If someone wants to talk to me," she said aloud, "why haven't I heard from Ops? It takes an Omega to personally carry messages through this ship now, does it? And while we're on the subject of _my ship_, just what the hell are you—"

"Bridge to Captain Finn." Her first officer's voice through the com system interrupted Amandine's mounting tirade.

_Damn. I was just hitting my stride. _"Finn here," she responded resignedly. "What is it, Commander?"

"We're getting some strange readings through the long range com system, Captain. It's garbled, and I can't tell for sure, but I'd say someone outside our normal communication range—_way_ outside our normal communication range—wants to—"

"—talk with us." Amandine took in Omega's's smug expression and sighed.

"Captain?" Commander Kemper's voice was puzzled.

"We have an unexpected visitor, Commander. I'll explain shortly. See if you can clear up those transmissions. I'm on my way."

"Yes, Captain. Bridge out."

Amandine glared at the being on her bed. "Would you mind leaving so I can get dressed?" she demanded icily.

"Oh no, that will take much too long." Omega waved her hand lazily. White light flashed. When her vision cleared, Amandine saw that she was impeccably washed, brushed and dressed, her flame-red hair twisted as usual into the tight bun that prevented it from clashing _too_ horribly with her crimson uniform.

"Now."Omega smiled charmingly. "Shall we go?"

Amandine turned without a word and left her quarters. She arrived on the Bridge just as Lieutenant Bryson at Ops announced triumphantly, "Got it, Commander."

"Good work, Heather." Amandine said. "Onscreen."

First Officer and Bridge crew, used to their Captain's sudden appearances, saluted briefly and turned to the main viewscreen. It flickered for a moment, then lit to reveal three humans on the bridge of a starcraft unlike any Amandine had ever seen. The small woman in the middle and slightly to the fore was obviously the captain. Her bearing bespoke an unselfconscious—almost un_conscious_—authority, and a formidable competence. The woman was flanked by two men. One was a solid, kind-looking native man with an odd tattoo over his left brow. The other was tall, wiry, and arrogant-looking, with flashing eyes and a long aquiline nose that looked a great deal like—

_Oh. No._

The captain onscreen broke the moment of silence. "I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship, Voyager. This is my First Officer, Commander Chakotay. And this is—Q."

Amandine cleared her throat. "Captain Amandine Finn of the Intergalactic Republic, Starcraft Arwen. My First Officer, Commander Kemper, and—" she gritted her teeth— "Omega."

Captain Janeway offered a tight-lipped smile and nodded politely, as did Commander Chakotay. Clearly the situation was no more under their control than Amandine's, for all Janeway's unconscious authority. Illogically, this made Amandine feel better.

Q and Omega surveyed each other speculatively, then said in unison, "How interesting."

"You prefer blonde?" Q said quickly. "I've always preferred dark hair, myself—"

"Oh, well, yes. Tall, rugged and handsome. But have you ever seen the way a room full of human males reacts to blond hair, blue eyes, and a trim figure? _Most_ amusing."

Q nodded. "Hm. Yes. The entertainment value. But what about—"

"Do you two _mind_?" Amandine barked. Q, Omega, and the two Federation officers jumped. "This is not some little bar in the Infinity where you two can jabber on about inconsequentials. _You_ both—unless I'm much mistaken—have an eternity in which to settle the finer points of personal appearance. _My _life, as you're always so good as to remind me," here a sarcastic glance at Omega, "is painfully short. So would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on here? For starters, _please_ don't tell me there are _two_ races of omnipotent beings in the universe?"

Voyager's First Officer chuckled, and the corner of Captain Janeway's mouth twitched suspiciously. "Fortunately for all of us, no," she said. "This may be hard for you to accept, but our ships don't exist in the same universe."

"Our sensor readings confirm that, Captain." Heather spoke up from Ops. "As clearly as I can figure out, we're communicating through parallel dimensions through some contrivance of Omega and—Q."

Amandine nodded. "So—we're counterparts?" she hazarded, looking at Janeway. "The Federation in your universe is the Republic in ours?"

"I presume so." Janeway glanced at Q, who nodded.

"So why has it suddenly become important for the Omega and the Q to bring us into contact?" Commander Kemper finally spoke up, asking, as usual, the one pertinent question everyone else was dancing around.

Commander Chakotay's smile was broader this time. "Because of a blunder on the part of Q here," he said, with some smugness.

Q frowned. "I didn't blunder, I just—"

"Didn't think things through," another voice finished acerbically. A woman, tall and thin, in a red and black Federation uniform, stepped into the screen and took Q's arm possessively. "I am Q, and this is _my_ Q, in case you were wondering," she said aggressively, locking eyes with Omega.

"I wasn't,"Omega replied calmly. "Men bore me. Omega or—other."

Q looked startled. Chakotay grinned. Janeway coughed.

Amandine snatched control of the conversation. "So what, exactly, was this blunder, and how can we help?"

"Briefly," Janeway too spoke quickly, not allowing anyone else a word in edgewise, "Q has sent a human girl into your universe and we need to get her back."

----------------------------------------------------------

_I can't do this._

Emily gagged as she dumped the mess of blood, rotted flesh and vomit from the chamber pot into the privy. The cold bit savagely through her dress and shabby cloak, and she hurried back to the relative warmth of the hospital ward. Dr. Winslow gave her a smile that was probably meant to be encouraging as he looked up from the surgical bed, hands bloody to the elbow. Emily smiled briefly in return as she moved back to his side. The patient's leg, infected with gangrene, had been successfully amputated. Blood soaked the bed, and the smell of burnt flesh from the cauterized wound hung balefully in the chill air. The patient, mercifully, was unconscious.

_I can't do this._

The words were meaningless as they repeated themselves like a mantra in Emily's mind. She held a bowl of warm water and soap out to the tired doctor, who used both, then dried his hands on the towel she had draped over her arm. "That's the last," he told her. "Give him quinine if he complains of pain when he wakes. Thank God for the anesthetic."

She nodded.

"If the one with the head injury wakes, or the boy with the infected stomach needs anything—" Dr. Winslow's candid look told her what he would not say aloud. She was to use her own discretion, and he would verify whatever she did in the morning. She nodded again.

When Louisa had finally gone home in the care of her father and Emily had taken over the ward, the doctor had quickly discovered that her knowledge of internal medicine exceeded his. Unlike Dr. FitzPatrick, Dr. Winslow appreciated her skill and allowed her to treat what patients she could. Since she was not a doctor, he signed off on whatever doses she told him were necessary.

"Goodnight, Miss Anderson."

"Goodnight, Dr. Winslow."

The ward was very quiet when the doctor left it. Emily sat down in her chair in the corner and turned to her mending, missing Louisa's companionship and quick, ironic humor. Her chapped hands were too cold and sore for sewing. She tried to warm them at the single candle on the table next to her and smiled faintly as she remembered Dickens' Bob Cratchet. She murmured the line aloud. "Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed."

Pain seared through her, nearly causing her to double over, though it was emotional rather than physical. Daddy had read _A Christmas Carol _aloud every year since she could remember. She could hear his warm, rumbly voice and feel Mama and Trixie close beside her as they sat on the couch and listened, staring raptly at the Christmas lights they had strung around the bookcase because they didn't have money for a tree. They had been so _happy_.

_I can't do this._

She closed her eyes against the tears that blinded her and picked up the mending. She was lying to herself of course. She _could_ do this. She had been doing this for four months now, and she would continue to do it. She didn't have a choice.

------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, tell me if I've got this straight." Amandine folded her arms across her chest and glared at the omnipotent being on the viewscreen before her. "A natural anomaly pulled this girl into your dimension from ours, and she lived on Voyager for several months without any egregious effects at all. But when you saw her you flipped out and decided to send her back to her own dimension because the Q have an unconfirmed _theory_ that her presence could destroy the universe. _However, _you didn't consult your Continuum, but acted immediately, on your own."

"Precisely." Miss Q cut in, her tone even sharper than Amandine's, if that was possible. "Without considering the possible consequences of causing a rupture in the dimensional structure, and without using even basic common sense. He allowed her to take material from _this_ universe _back _with her to yours! Not to mention the energy she has consumed from this universe that is inside her body, or the waste she has eliminated that came from your dimension and is still in this! In short, we have—"

"A bloody mess," Amandine agreed.

Miss Q snorted, but did not contradict her.

"What I don't understand is why you need her back," Amandine said. "If matter from another dimension harms the universe, it seems to me that bringing her back and forth between two universes compounds the problem alarmingly."

Commander Chakotay nodded. "You're right of course. But Miss Q has discovered that when Q sent Emily back to her own dimension—your dimension—he sent her into the wrong time period. So what you have now is an untrained, very young woman from the early 21st century, who has spent time in the 24th century, who is now trying to live in the mid-nineteenth century."

Commander Kemper nodded slowly. "I see. It isn't the damage to the—what did you call it? The dimensional structure?—that's worrying you. That's been done. It's the corruption of our timeline."

"Exactly." Captain Janeway said briskly. "Emily understands the Temporal Prime Directive, of course, but she _is _very young, and not even half-trained. One misstep on her part could be catastrophic. Since it seems probable that at this point her presence in your dimension is more dangerous than her presence here, I'm not leaving a member of my crew stranded in an unfamiliar environment." She leveled a glare at the two Q that could have peeled paint.

A new respect for this formidable captain caused Amandine to nod her head. "How can we help?"

----------------------------------------------------------------

_I can do this._

Emily tripped and fell painfully to her knees, the contents of her laundry basket flying in all directions. She gritted her teeth and laughed with those patients on her ward who were capable of laughing. It must have looked funny. Tom, hopped over on his crutch to help her right the basket and gather up the dirty linen. She smiled at him. "Thank you."

_I can do this._

She rubbed the soiled sheets vigorously against the washboard, then wrung them through the mangle with more skill than she ever would have thought possible when she first tried to use the unweildy thing. The woman who did the laundry was seriously ill, and it had become necessary to either wash the linen or live with dirty, germ-infested ones for an indefinite and unacceptable period of time. Tom had hopped down to the laundry after her and was now hanging sheets on the line to dry, handily balancing on his one good leg. She admired his courage. They had amputated his left a month ago, and pain in a foot that wasn't there still woke him at night.

"That be th' last of 'em, Ma'am?"

"I think so. Thank you, Tom."

"It's us who're obliged to you, Ma'am. See how hard you work fer us. Thought I'd do what I could to help."

Sudden tears stung her eyes. "Thank you, Tom. We'll get through this yet."

He grinned. "That we will, Miss. That we will."

-----------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, that's it. We're ready down here, Captain. The probe is in position and ready for transport." Lieutenant Reynold's voice sounded through the com system.

Amandine turned to the viewscreen. "Our systems are go."

Janeway nodded and turned questioning eyes to somebody offscreen. She nodded ("Good work B'Elana."), and turned back to Amandine. "Ready?"

Amandine nodded.

"Energize."

Both captains held their breaths. Then someone off the screen on Voyager's end said triumphantly, "Got it! The transport was a success, Captain!"

Amandine felt her own grin as an echo of the one that spread across Janeway's face. "Good work, everyone," Voyager's captain told her crew, and Amandine turned away from her counterpart to offer the same commendation to her own staff. Then she turned to Omega. "Okay."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Starcraft Arwen to Miss Anderson of Starship Voyager. Miss Anderson, do you copy?"

_What!_

Emily woke groggily, the words ringing in her head, and rubbed the crusted mucous from her eyes so that she could open them. Then she sneezed several times, violently. _Damn wool blankets!_ Dawn's grey light filtered into the room. Her shift didn't start till noon.

"Starcraft Arwen to Miss Anderson. Emily Anderson, do you read me?"

Those words again. _I can't still be asleep? _Reflexively, Emily's hand went to her left collar bone, where her com badge would have been if she was still on Voyager. It wasn't there of course. It was hanging on a chain with her cross. Emily tugged it out from underneath her bodice.

"Anderson here."

The sound of her own voice made her jump, and she dropped the com badge, feeling rather silly. Finally, she was awake. When she had first come, Voyager had contacted her in her sleep every night for a month, but the longer she was here, the more infrequent such dreams became. She hadn't had one for a long time now. She rubbed her eyes again and sat up, stretching her cold-benumbed legs and making sure they would hold her weight before slowly standing.

"Miss Anderson, I am Captain Amandine Finn of the Explorer's Guild Starcraft Arwen."

Emily stumbled and banged against the wash stand. "The—the who?" Oh God, was she still asleep after all?

"The Explorer's Guild. We're the equivalent of Starfleet in this demension."

"_What?_" For an instant, Emily couldn't even remember what Starfleet was.

"I understand how confusing this must be for you." The voice was gentle. A woman's voice, she realized. Low and musical, completely unlike Captain Janeway's except for that familiar undercurrent of absolute authority. "Your Captain contacted us two months ago to ask our help in returning you to Voyager."

_But—Q said—_

_I am dreaming. I'm still dreaming. _

_But—I should go along with it. It might really be happening, and even if it is only a dream, maybe I'll get to see the Captain and—everybody before I wake up._

When before had she thought something similar?

"Miss Anderson?"

"Y-yes, Captain. I'm here."

"You are alone?"

"Yes."

"We are going to transport you to my ship, and from there straight to Voyager. What I must ask of you is that you change into the clothing you were wearing when you arrived in this dimension, that you pack everything you brought from Voyager's dimension, and that you leave behind anything you have acquired since you've been here, even if it is as small as a pencil. Do you copy?"

"Y-yes. Understood, Captain." The formal words flew from her lips without her volition while her mind whirled, barely comprehending what the strange captain was telling her.

"Good. We can give you five minutes. Finn out."

_Finn who? Five minutes for what? Until—oh God—five minutes!_

Suddenly there was too much to do. Frantically, she scrabbled for her pack and levered it out onto her bed. Shivering violently in the frigid room, she shrugged out of her underclothes and pulled on her Starfleet issue shirt, trousers and coat. She grabbed her journal from the bedtable and stuffed it into her pack before tugging on her shoes and stockings.

She gave up trying to tie her bootlaces. Her fingers were too numb with the cold. Instead she flew to the wash table, cracked the layer of ice that had formed in her water pitcher, and hastilly washed her face and hands and slicked back her hair.

"Starcraft Arwen to Miss Anderson."

Emily jumped nearly a foot, and quickly tugged the chain with her com badge out from under her shirt. "Yes?"

"Are you ready?"

"I-I—um—" she ran across the room and slung her pack over one shoulder. Was it possible this was actually _real_? "Y-yes, Captain."

"Energize."

There was a flash of white light, and the blurring sensation she had come to associate with transport aboard Voyager. One glimpse of strange faces and odd, crimson uniforms. Another blurring. And then quite suddenly she was staring into the wide, concerned eyes of Harry Kim in the familiar confines of Voyager's transporter room.

Everything whirled and swam before her eyes. Several people converged on her at once, but the blurring of her vision prevented her from seeing their faces, and the lassitude that pervaded her body prevented her from speaking, or giving any sign of greeting. The last thing she felt was the floor of the transporter room rising with surprising gentleness to meet her.


	21. Report

Author's Note: _Sorry there haven't been any updates in so long! I do plan on completing this story. One more chapter should do it!_

Disclaimer: _What Paramount doesn't know won't hurt them._

**Report**

"So that's all, Captain, I believe." Emily spoke slowly, trying to keep exhaustion from slurring her words. "When Louisa left, I was put in charge of the ward. I didn't know what else to do, so I stayed and did what I—what I could." Her voice broke, and she fell silent. Had she really done what she could? Hundreds of soldiers had died in agony under her care, for lack of a simple remedy in the medkit hidden under her bed.

Her vision blurred, and she saw the hurt that had flashed into Louisa's eyes when Emily had checked words of encouragement and friendship and offered a meaningless platitude instead.

She blinked carefully until she could again see Captain Janeway's impassive face.

Since she had returned to Voyager, she had spent two hours under the Doctor's care and half an hour in the sonic shower (with Kes monitoring her life signs from outside the door) before being called to report. Now she stood to attention in the Captain's ready room in blue jeans and turtle-neck that somehow felt alien and unfamiliar. She didn't know how to move, how to hold her head, what to do with her hands. Apprehension, fatigue, and a sense of unreality made her faint and nauseous. She swallowed and concentrated on standing still. If she moved, she would fall.

Finally the Captain stirred, and her intense gaze dropped to the padd on the desk before her. "Miss Anderson," she said slowly, "the Doctor informs me that he treated you for advanced typhoid fever. Why didn't you treat the fever yourself, or vaccinate yourself before you contracted it? Surely you have sufficient medical knowledge to use the innoculations in the medkit."

Again the room swam before Emily's eyes. She closed them and stepped back surreptitiously to place a hand against the wall.

_What was the question? I had typhoid?_

"I…I didn't know, Captain." The words were little more than a whisper.

"You were working in a primitive hospital, and you knew that several of your colleagues were severely ill, and you didn't give yourself routine medical scans? That seems rather careless." The Captain was staring at her intently, almost as if she was looking for a specific answer, but Emily couldn't imagine what she was supposed to say.

"I…I didn't think of it, Captain," she said faintly. "I suppose it was careless, but I…" She stopped.

The Captain sat very still. "Go on."

"I—I… Everyone else was sick, and—and dying—and I couldn't help them—because of the Prime Directive of course—but—Captain, I couldn't use the medkit to save myself and let everyone else die! I mean, if I couldn't save my friends and my patients, I could at least suffer with them and not set myself above them, somehow, by being—" She stopped again, aware that her voice was spiraling toward hysteria.

There was a long silence.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she whispered. "But I thought… I wasn't on an away mission. I thought I was going to be there for the rest of my life."

Janeway's face was still impassive. "Did you want to die?"

"I…I don't know. I couldn't think that far past the bed pans and the dying people and…and getting through this moment, and then the next, and then the next… It didn't…occur to me that I might die. But—" she swallowed tears and went on— "but I'm not sure it would have mattered much to me if it had."

There was another silence, during which Emily stared at the floor and concentrated on keeping herself upright. Then the Captain stood and stepped around her desk. "Thank you, Emily," she said gently. "I am impressed again by your intelligence and your courage under pressure. You are a credit and an asset to this crew."

Emily raised her eyes too quickly. "Then—I did it right?"

The Captain placed a steadying hand on the young woman's shoulder, her face softened into an affection Emily could hardly credit.

"Yes."

------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as Emily materialized back in Sickbay, she dissolved into tears. Kes helped her onto a bed, then sat down beside her and wrapped her arms around her even as she surrounded her with a mental hug so full of caring it was palpable. Tearing, wrenching sobs wracked both their bodies until nothing else existed.

Some time later she became aware of a voice, as if in the distance.

Some little time later, she identified the voice as the Doctor at his most irate. She burst into fresh tears. So many times in the past six months she had wanted—needed, really, with a passion and desperation so great she could still taste the bile in her throat—to hear that voice again; to feel the safety and security and normality, even in the midst of chaos, that the Doctor's perpetual irritation and sarcastic humor represented to her. As she listened to him rant about something or nothing in particular, she thought that she had never loved anyone so much.

"…_told_ the Captain it was out of the question! That it was too soon! That a prolonged series of questions could cause an emotional collapse! But no, it was worth the risk, the Captain said. She had to give the report right then, while everything was still fresh in her mind, the Captain said. The circumstances were too delicate to delay the recital of information, some detail of which might be vital to the timeline of this dimension or that. And of course I caved in—deferred to her despite my better judgment like a good little hologram—and _now _look at my patient! But does anyone take my advice seriously? Of course not. It's just the Doctor. Nothing to worry about. His trillions of specially engineered cerebral processors could not possibly contain more information than a simple, fallible, human brain. Kes, is she going to be all right?"

The last sentence, spoken with an anxiety radically different from the tone of his previous tirade, yet without so much as a pause for breath, struck Emily as hilarious. She burst into peal upon peal of hysterical laughter over which she had no more control than she had had over her tears.

Kes tightened her hold and spoke over her head. "Don't worry, Doctor, she'll be fine. Let her get all of this out."

The Doctor sniffed and muttered half-audible imprecations against the idea of 'getting all of this out' that only induced more hilarity from his patient.

Finally, both tears and hysterical laughter subsided, and Emily, completely drained, slumped against Kes' side, unable to move. Kes laid her gently back onto the bed and arranged her limbs as if Emily were a large rag doll. "Go to sleep now," she said quietly. "We can talk when you wake up."

Emily nodded. "Doctor?"

Faint as the whisper was, it brought the Doctor to her side instantly. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

The Doctor's puzzled expression was the last thing she saw before sleep claimed her.

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Of course, it wasn't like on television, where she would have put the whole experience behind her with the fade out on that last scene in Sickbay, and shown up in the next episode as whole and happy as if nothing had ever happened. That wasn't the way real life worked, even on Voyager.

Andrew and John worried about her constantly because in the midst of recreation she would suddenly start to cry. Not violently anymore, but silently and uncontrollably, as if there were a vast reservoir of tears inside her that would simply overflow when least expected. Neelix became visibly distressed when this happened as he told one of his pattering, random funny stories, and it took the combined reassurance of all her friends, plus Emily herself, to convince the good-hearted Talaxian that he hadn't hurt her feelings in some way.

Nearly a month after her return, Harry found her in her quarters sobbing over her clarinet. When he asked her what was the matter, she was forced to tell him that she couldn't practice. Every time she tried she was haunted by waking visions: Louisa, and the hurt in her eyes when Emily rejected her friendship; Tricky Tom's lost expression as he looked down at the space where his left leg should have been; her sister Trixie's gamine grin; the love in her Daddy's eyes when he looked at her; Q standing over her in her darkened quarters; the Doctor with whiskers and a tail; the sadistic cruelty in Dunbar's face as he backhanded her into a wall; Andrew, jaw clenched with fierce, desperate hope as he pulled her from the jaws of a land eel; bright, white light that seemed to engulf her and make her vanish entirely.

Harry took the clarinet away from her gently. "Maybe it would help if you talked to someone about all that stuff," he'd said, with an endearing mixture of hesitation and authority. "You've been through a hell of a lot in the past ten months, and you really haven't had anyone around you consistently enough to bounce things off of—to keep you grounded. I don't know if I'm the right person to do this, but I care about you, and I don't go on shift for 24 hours. I literally have all day. So—talk."

And Emily talked. She told him about her family, about growing up on the fringes of late 20th Century America. She told him things she thought she had forgotten. The arguments she used to have with her mom; the elaborate worlds she and her sister created with their dolls; the joy she felt when she converted to Christianity at age 13 and began attending the local Episcopal church. She explained the loneliness and isolation she felt when, at 17, she had gone off to music school. She had never before been away from her family for more than two weeks. For the first time she haltingly tried to describe the blinding white light, and the odd, spiritual pain that accompanied a journey to another dimension.

Her voice gave out as she articulated her desperate, though successful, attempts to fit in aboard Voyager, and her deep and abiding homesickness. In a whisper, she described her second brush with death in Starling's office, and went on to explain her nightmares, her panic when Voyager entered the Continuum, and her confrontation with Q.

When she lost her voice entirely, Harry replicated two cups of mint tea before she had to ask, and they drank them in silence. Then, haltingly, she talked about Louisa May Alcott and her betrayal of the friendship they had built between them. She described the cold, the loneliness, and the despair of the hospital work when Louisa was gone. She cried as she told him how many men she could have saved with the simple remedies in her medkit, and she laughed as she remembered the antics of the men, and their desperate attempts to keep each other's spirits up. She told him how she had prayed, there, for the first time since her arrival on Voyager, and how she had hung her com badge with the cross around her neck.

"They were both—symbols of faith, I guess. Faith—if I hadn't had it—I would have died, I think, or gone crazy. Then, if not before. I'm still not entirely sure how it's possible to go through as many times and dimensions and experiences as I have and stay sane at all. Except that I'm too afraid to go mad. I'm in love with normality. I couldn't even stand to be away at school and here I am across the universe in a different dimension. But…"

She fell silent. Harry just sat with her, for a long, long time.


End file.
